


the island on the edge of forever

by tavrincallas



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M, Magical Realism, and pining, and slow burn, angst angst angst, in which fisherman!Hendo broods like no other man could
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-11 20:02:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 39,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17453363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tavrincallas/pseuds/tavrincallas
Summary: Adam is a footballer nearly reaching retirement age, exposed out of the closet without his consent, and traveled all the way to the Hebrides to escape the unwanted media attention. Depressed, drunk and disconsolate, Adam accidentally took a plunge down the high cliffs of the islands, straight into the oceans. He should have died, but miraculously woke up to find that he was trapped in the fishing net of one Jordan Henderson and his band of merry fishermen of Tigh-na-Fiodha, along the coast of Lineile. The other catch? Adam was whisked back in time to 1848.





	1. ad undas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Booperesque](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Booperesque/gifts).



> ETA: the ocean noise setting that I used to write this is [here](https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/windSeaRainNoiseGenerator.php?l=5686576737614259372600&m=&d=0)

Adam remembered leaving the bright lights of Liverpool in July, driving fast down, _down_ to Bournemouth and realizing that too many people knew him down there, although it was home and home was meant to be safe. He remembered slamming the boot of his car after filling in the petrol, stopped at a massive Tesco on the M8 and bought packs and packs of beer to forget that this has ever happened, and drove all the way up North. Robbo phoned him several times, checking if he was ok, and Adam merely disconnected the Bluetooth five seconds into the conversation, in which all he could hear was Robbo’s Scottish lilt saying ‘people are worried’ before the line went dead. It must have been something about Robbo’s voice that unconsciously wormed into Adam’s brain, which was how he ended up speeding to Oban and paid for a ferry straight to Mull. But no, that wasn’t enough.

He needed to get away from all these faceless, heartless people, as far away as possible.

He remembered pressing the pedal harder, driving up to Fionnphort and leaving his car. He remembered taking the ferry to Lineile in a daze, hearing only the splashes of waves and the squawks of seagulls in his ears. He was drunk on rage, and emptiness, and everything that the oceans could offer him all at the same time. He remembered checking into a half-charred cottage by the cliff— it was a wonder how he could get so lucky at such short notice, but he wasn’t one for complaining. He remembered squinting at the name – _Tigh-na-Fiodha_ – not that he could pronounce it anyway, he thought, and crashed straight onto the bed that smelled of mildew and salt.

There was something calming about the ocean tides. During the day, Lineile would have reminded him of Bournemouth, with its seaside and sleepy coastal towns and boats and quaintly painted houses.

The storm continued to rage outside.  

Adam didn’t mind.

 

* * *

 

Sometime during the night Adam woke up and realized with a hurtful pang in his heart that he was truly alone, out of his own choosing. He needed to clear his head. The stuff in the papers had been too much – criticizing his skills was one thing, but once they started conflating his personal life and his worth as a football player, as a sportsman, as a-

As a human being?

Who the fuck were they to judge?

His mouth tasted cottony from sleep, the patterns of the pillowcase’s laces etched uncomfortably onto his skin. He grabbed a can of beer, another one, and another one. His gaze landed on a sharp pair of eyes that looked so alive, that stared at him judgingly and for a brief moment Adam thought he was being watched.

It was a half-hidden painting— stacked against the wall to the left of his bed, amongst other smaller paintings and framed daguerreotypes from a forgotten era. Of men that are long dead, but their memories last in one-or-more-than-a-few-seconds in the faded photographs. Adam inched closer to stare at the torn canvas, finding himself staring at a pair of cold blue eyes belonging to a man with a stern, severe countenance. The same man was in the other smaller daguerreotype, but he appeared much more relaxed, with a hint of a smile on his lips – in the company of three other men.

One of whom looked exactly like Adam.

He dropped the frame to the floor in shock.

 

* * *

 

Adam remembered running out of the cottage, because his head hurt from memories that shouldn’t have been there. It could also be that he was drunk and he was beginning to have a splitting headache just because of that, but the storm kept on raging and the winds were calling him home, closer, _closer_ to the edge. In the dark, all Adam could see was rain, all he could feel was the wet grass underneath his feet. Each droplet of rain trickling down his skin. The sweet, earthy scent of petrichor. The sirens were singing his name, urging him on.

One more step.

And Adam fell.

Drowned. Steeped in sorrow.

It may as well end this way.

 

* * *

 

Adam awakens in late August, wooden planks underneath his body, bobbing along to the calm waves. He could taste salty waters on his lips. His eyes sting and he could barely see. All he could think about was how much his chest hurts with each sharp inhale, how much he wants to breathe but his lungs were filled with pain and agony. There was a press on his chest, loud howls of men in languages he could understand but could not speak, the sharp crack of his ribs as they try to revive him. A warm mouth was covered over his, giving one breath, then another, and another—with each comes a chance for a new life.

Adam’s spluttering coughs make his chest ache even more, as his eyes fly open, as he gasps for air.

 

* * *

 

He was feverish, he was delirious.

When he wakes up again, one of the men who waits patiently by his bed – Dejan – tells him that the date is August 1848. Adam thinks he must still be dreaming. Maybe this is Hell, or an idea of Hell— but he decides to glide along this path anyway. Ultimately, Adam surmises that waking up in 1848 is probably much better than waking up in 2018, to his old hollow existence, to the life he has nothing else to give.

The other folk in the small fishing town are too busy to think about the new stranger in Lineile. Apparently Clattenburg has been told by Dejan that Adam is the new schoolmaster from London, sent to teach the bairns on this side of the island. The story goes that Adam had drowned when the boat carrying him from Oban toppled over, together with it most of Adam’s possessions (and some of his faculties, as it appears that Adam is suffering from some kind of amnesia). Naturally, Adam presumes that he has to stick with that farfetched tale for now.

When Adam asks why, of all professions, have they decided that Adam was a drowning schoolmaster, Dejan looks at him oddly. “Why, we’ve known you were coming since three months ago. Clattenburg has been looking for a new schoolmaster when the last one left, and we were informed that you were replacing him.”

“Are you sure you haven’t got the wrong man?” Adam asks, trying hard to hide his panic.

“You said your name was Adam Lallana?” Dejan raises a cutting eyebrow.

Adam nods quietly.

Dejan hands him a bunch of yellowed papers, all scrunched up but the inked writings still legible enough for Adam to know that they look important. “We couldn’t salvage everything, but this was in one of your trunks.” Adam squints at the elegant cursive hand, which would have been what his own handwriting looks like if he had spent more time practicing in Mrs Hartley’s English class back in Primary Three.

The papers have got his name, his birthday (which was accurate except for the year, 1818 instead of 1988), his old home address in St Albans…

There was another Adam Lallana back in 1848, and somehow a soul-switch had happened when Adam drowned. And now, the Adam of the future had replaced the one from the past, and _gosh,_ Adam thinks, this couldn’t get any stranger.

Perhaps this was his second chance at living.

Perhaps this was his chance to make things right.

 

* * *

 

When Dejan took Adam to see Clattenburg, it was clear that he was unwanted in town. Clattenburg reasoned that he would rather have Adam board with Jordan Henderson on his croft, since Jordan has built a cottage grand enough for a London schoolmaster.

Tigh-na-Fiodha.

Dejan explains that he is one of Jordan’s hired men, one of his band of Merry Reds; the fishermen folk of Fiodha. The strays that Jordan has collected from his travels and moulded into proper sea-dogs. He drives Adam six miles out of town to Jordan's croft, the skies grey and gloomy and foreboding. Adam could hear the waves crashing against the rocky shores, although he couldn’t see it, he knows it’s near. The croaks of seagulls deafening, flying high above their heads, wings flapping relentlessly against the wind.

Adam finds out that most of the men working for Jordan aren’t even Scottish. Dejan himself is a Croat, he declares proudly.

In good humour, Dejan also tells Adam that there have been whispers among the men that Adam is actually a selkie, and that Henderson had stolen his sealskin, and that explains why Adam was so clueless about his identity or how things work around these parts, and— “Hah!” Dejan slaps his thigh in manic laughter, “-isn’t that the wildest thing ever?”

Adam only manages a polite nod— he couldn’t even imagine what Dejan would say if he were to confess the truth.

He also learns that Jordan is respected and maybe a little feared by his men, that he's a bachelor; that he’s a Sunderland man.

So what is Jordan doing all the way up here in Lineile?

For all the nights that Adam has spent recuperating in Jordan’s home, he has never even laid eyes on the man. But later, he will learn that Melwood is the name of Jordan Henderson’s boat— the same one that had caught and saved him.  

_Melwood,_ the English translation of _Fiodha_.

 

* * *

 

They get to the house after dark. There's a man standing at the porch, silhouetted against the dim light from the kerosene lamps behind him. Jordan looks like a giant, like he's seven feet tall, and he's young, younger than Adam thought he would be, his russet brown hair looking almost golden in the darkness. He doesn't say much, just grunts a greeting and tells Adam that there is dinner left on the kitchen table. They have put Adam in a bedroom upstairs—sparsely furnished but clean. There's a cot in the corner and the windows face east. This was not the bedroom he has slept in on that night in 2018, he thinks.

That must have been Jordan’s bedroom, the one with the portraits and paintings and scattered daguerreotypes.

Adam can hardly sleep that first night because of a strange, tight excitement in his chest that he's never felt before.

 

* * *

 

No one really has time for Adam during those first few weeks. The fishing won’t get done if no one goes out fishing, Dejan says. Jordan and all his men – Dejan, Trent Alexander-Arnold, James Milner, Daniel Sturridge and Gini Wijnaldum – are out at sunup every morning and don't come back until sundown. Sometimes they spend the night in the seas. They've got an Egyptian man, Mo Salah to do the housework because he's sick and has to stay off the boats.

Mo has a kind face that looks pale even in the sun, lips that are almost grey, and he's quiet, smiles a lot. Adam finds out quickly that Mo likes to read. He has a battered copy of Walter Scott's  _Waverley_ that apparently Jordan bought for him off a tinker who came through town about a year ago. Otherwise he reads the Qur’an, in its beautifully calligraphed Arabic letters and intricate bindings, and the Surah Al-Mulk is his favourite.

He has such a beautiful voice too, when he recites each verse in the cold, dark nights.

Mo laughs at Adam and his modern, city ways or his soft, soft hands. Adam doesn't even know how to work their strange, enormous water pump. Mo shows Adam how to boil water, how to kill and clean a squid, how to fillet a fish. In return, Adam reads to Mo from the books he brought with him while Mo does housework.

Obviously Mo doesn’t know that Adam _really_ doesn’t know how to do those things – not just because Adam is from _the_ city. It’s because Adam is from _a_ city, 170 years away from now. Obviously Adam doesn’t tell Mo that.

Several times Mo has one of his spells. The first time it happens because Mo laughs at something Adam said. He starts coughing, but Adam doesn't think anything of it until Mo stumbles back and knocks a pitcher off the table. Adam stands up in alarm. Mo's eyes are watering, his coughs going sharp and horrible, like there's something in his chest trying to claw its way out. Adam has no idea what to do, but Mo waves him off, taking great wheezing breaths between the coughs that make him sound like he's drowning.

Adam is ready to run out to get Dejan or someone to fetch a doctor, but Mo, after inhaling sharply a few times, tips his head back and croaks, "No," at him, very clearly. So they wait it out there in the stifling kitchen. Adam wets a towel for Mo, and he sits quietly, his eyes shut, trying to keep his coughs down. Supper that night is a bit of mackerel, some apples, and cheese. Mo makes Adam promise not to tell, but Adam thinks the men know when they see what they're to eat that night. Dejan is uncharacteristically silent, watching Mo like a hawk. Jordan watches Mo too, but he doesn't say anything, just makes Studge and Trent clear up the kitchen afterward. Milly goes out to smoke his pipe, Gini disappears somewhere with a cask and a grin that showcases the sparkling whiteness of his teeth, and Adam follows Jordan out onto the verandah.

"Is this the first time since you've been here?" Jordan says abruptly.

Adam is startled; Jordan hasn't started any conversations before. "Yes," he replies, knowing exactly what Jordan is referring to.

"Mo's got no one," Jordan says, staring out over the vast oceans, which are pitch-black in the moonlight; boats bobbing along to the gentle splashing waves as they are moored to the pier. He rests his hands on the porch railing. "Carragher wouldn't keep him after he got sick. Doc Simon is good but he doesn't know what to do for Mo, and he's almost fifteen miles away, on Mull. He thinks Mo needs to be taken to see one of them city doctors, maybe put in a sanatorium."

Adam doesn’t know what a sanatorium is exactly, but maybe he’s watched enough _Downton Abbey_ to know that late 19th century medicine can be full of quacks and swindlers. The Crimean War has yet to happen, and Florence Nightingale has not yet become the Lady of the Lamp. "They might be able to make him more comfortable, but they cannot guarantee recovery," Adam says.

Jordan's hands clench, though his voice remains impassive. "I don't know what to do for him."

Adam wants to reach out and put a hand to Jordan's shoulder, to comfort him. But this is the first real conversation they've had, and he doesn't know Jordan. Or does he? He feels that he’s probably known Jordan all his life, although he would be a fool to have such sentiments. Sometimes he catches Jordan watching him, and when their eyes meet Adam feels like he'd trust Jordan Henderson with his life, though he knows next to nothing about him.

"I think it's right that Mo should be here, at least for now, where he has people to look after him, but he can still feel useful,” Adam says, instead. “The air is good here, too. Much better than any city." That last bit is true. This is the most content that Adam has ever felt in forever. No one knows him here. There is no Internet and social media, only harmless island gossip.

He could start again.

Jordan turns to look at Adam, and Adam gets that feeling again, but this time it's even stranger, like Jordan is trusting him, too, putting his faith in Adam's words. It's a little bit frightening, to suddenly know that his words hold so much weight with someone, and especially with a man like Jordan.

"I'm glad he's got you here for company now," Jordan says.

He turns back to the seas and doesn't say anything more. The silence isn't empty, though; it's full of words that Adam has to stop himself from speaking, but he holds them all in, wondering how long he'll be able to keep them to himself.

 

* * *

 

They raise the new schoolhouse on the second weekend in September. Adam's gotten to know a few of the people in town at church on Sundays, at the famed Lineile Abbey which dates from the early 5th century – the age of St Columba and Viking raids and Lindisfarne monks. Jordan, Gini and Adam are the only ones to attend; the other men stay at Fiodha, and Jordan doesn't seem to care. Adam isn’t even religious, but he is in awe of history. With Lineile and its sister island Iona being one of the oldest Christian religious centres in Western Europe, Adam thinks that he probably has to at least show face— to reduce suspicion of his background among the ultra-religious and uber-superstitious local folk. If he’s meant to be the schoolmaster, he probably needs to set up an example for the children who will be under his tutelage, too.

It had been a bit of a battle to round up the lumber to build the school, since Clattenburg and Carragher said it was needed for a new manse. Rev. Neville stepped in and barked that there weren't nothing wrong with the old one, and Jordan stood by, mostly silent, speaking only to remind Clattenburg that Jordan had donated nearly half the money for that lumber for a schoolhouse, not a manse. Adam saw the way Clattenburg and Carragher glowered at him. It hasn't escaped Adam that Jordan is not popular in town. The success of his fishing and farming venture would be one thing if he were willing to take part in their church socials and town meetings and going around to spy on their neighbours to report back to Clattenburg and Carragher on everyone's business. Adam is beginning to suspect that he'd been shunted off to Jordan's in the hope that he would report back on Jordan's doings, and the failure of this plot was turning Clattenburg and Carragher against him, making them suspicious.

Surely they hadn’t counted on the fact that Adam had drowned and was saved by the very man they seemed to hate so much, and secondly – that he wasn’t even _the_ Adam Lallana that they had expected to arrive on Lineile?

There are two lassies who appear to be sweet on Jordan, to the chagrin of their fathers. They try to talk to him after church every Sunday, but Jordan always finds a way to excuse himself with a tip of his hat and politely walk away. It  _is_  strange, Adam thinks, that Jordan doesn't seem to be looking to get himself a wife and make that big house of his a real home. But as Adam himself had made avoiding women an art form back in Liverpool, back in Bournemouth, back in his old life as the Straight White Male Football Star— until everything collapsed on top of him when that headline and pap photos were released without his consent, so he sympathizes and admires Jordan's straightforward technique.

They gather as many men from the island as they can, and Adam watches as the schoolhouse goes up in a matter of hours. He tries to help, but knows next to nothing about carpentry (or even teaching), though he's been studying pamphlets and diagrams that had been stacked in the _other_ Adam Lallana’s trunks, or whatever was left of them after Jordan fished them out of the sea. He's told Jordan he wants all the large windows on the south side to minimize shadows and glare on the desks, but those were his only specifications. They would use oiled paper in the windows until the glass they'd ordered arrived all the way from Glasgow.

That evening, as Jordan and his men are packing up the tools and supplies they brought in the cart, Adam walks into the schoolhouse, running his fingers over the wood and breathing in the smell of it. There's still a lot of work to be done on the inside, but he'll figure it out. His very own school. He had thought of opening up a football school maybe, for little kids, if he had lived a different life. But this is good enough, he thinks. Adam stands there in the dim light, the sunset shining through the still-open windows, and smiles, not noticing Jordan in the doorway until Jordan says his name.

Adam turns, and Jordan is staring at him. Though his mouth his stern, there's something about his face that makes Adam think he's smiling.

"Do you like your new schoolhouse?" Jordan says.

"Yes. I like it very much."

Then Jordan really does smile, and Adam feels like he's been socked in the chest. But he doesn't say anything, just follows Jordan out to the cart. The other men ride in the back, and Adam sits on the box with Jordan. They sing songs all the way back to Fiodha.

 

* * *

 

Adam walks to the schoolhouse every morning to work on things. Jordan left him a few tools and the leftover lumber, and they've installed the stove from the old sod schoolhouse, so Adam sets in trying to build and affix the benches and desks. It's hard work; he gets advice and directions from Jordan, but Jordan can't help him; there's too much work to do on the croft. So he does the best he can with the advice and the diagrams and pamphlets. Though the evenings are starting to cool off, the days are still very warm, and Adam has to shed his jacket and shirt that he’s borrowed from Dejan, getting sweaty with the effort of moving things, sawing planks, nailing boards together, sanding things down.

He couldn’t remember working this hard in his life, except when he was so young and full of life, trying to prove his worth to the football coaches and talent scouts in order to join top tier clubs. This? This is so different, and yet so familiar.

He doesn't have much to show for his first day of work, the bench he'd tried to make looking lopsided and slipshod despite all his measurements and careful calculations. His arms ache from the unaccustomed movements and he's filthy. Mo had made him a dinner to bring in a pail, but he'd lost track of time and hadn't eaten it, and now he's hungry and grumpy.

That night Jordan asks him how he's progressing.

"Fine," Adam says curtly.

Jordan says nothing, just watches him, and that makes Adam even madder, because he knows Jordan can see straight through him to his frustration at his own lack of skill.

He marches the six miles back to the schoolhouse the next morning with grim determination. Though the families in town don't seem to be in any hurry to start school because everyone is busy with their crofts and their fishing, he knows that come winter, when there isn't as much work to be done and the children are underfoot, they will wonder why their schoolhouse isn't ready yet. He has no idea why he’s become so invested in this new role, or how quickly he’s adapted to this life. Only a fortnight ago he was running away, his body an empty shell devoid of emotion or sense. And now he’s _living_ again. He has a purpose, and he doesn’t think he’s as useless as he’s felt about himself in a long time.

Adam works hard all morning, ignoring the children who come to stare at him curiously over the sills of the open windows and through the doorway. He's struggling with sanding a plank down when he senses yet another presence behind him in the doorway. Sighing, he turns, expecting another one of his prospective pupils to be eyeing him with suspicion and something like contempt at his incompetence, but it's Jordan, his golden hair gleaming like a halo in the sunlight streaming through the doorway. Adam tries not to think of Jordan as a ministering angel. But he looks like one, strong and beautiful and benevolent as he smiles down at Adam, who is sitting on the floor, his shirt soaked through with sweat and dust and dirt on his face, his soft hands bruised and bleeding.

"Let me help you," Jordan says, coming forward, his hat held in one of his hands.

Adam stands up, and suddenly Jordan is before him, so close Adam could reach out and put his hand on Jordan's chest. Jordan is looking down at him, his eyes soft, and Adam can't believe this is the same unsmiling giant he saw watching him from the verandah that first night.

"I thought you would’ve gone out on your boat, on the seas," Adam says, trying not to sound as unsteady as he feels.

"I left Milly in charge of Melwood," Jordan says, still just watching Adam, and Adam doesn't know if it's the heat or Jordan's gaze but he feels flushed all over, knowing he does not have to do this alone.

"I'm trying to make these benches," Adam says. Jordan's gaze finally breaks away, and he regards the sad, lopsided little bench that Adam completed the night before.

"Sure," Jordan says, and he picks up a nail, drives it into the wall with a quick tap of a hammer, and hangs his hat there. Then he rolls up his sleeves and picks up a saw.

He shows Adam how to build a bench, and how to affix boards to the pins in the walls to serve as desks. Then, after they complete one, Jordan bends over Adam and puts his hand over Adam's to show him how to sand in long, smooth strokes instead of small circular ones. Jordan's hands are enormous. Adam has long fingers but Jordan's hand, dry and callused and huge, envelops Adam's hand completely and he feels a sudden stab of something in him that makes him panic.

He snatches his hand away and stands up abruptly, backing away.

"I...I think I've got the idea," Adam says, and it's like Jordan's eyes are pinning him there, suddenly dark and hard.

"So do it, then," he says roughly, and stands. Again Adam is struck by his height and the way he seems to be filling up the small one-room schoolhouse.  _Like Apollo_ , Adam thinks ridiculously, feverishly, Jordan all golden strength and beauty, radiant and angry before him.

Then Jordan turns and goes outside, and Adam shakes himself mentally. He's never been that afraid of anybody, and especially not of someone he knew was not dangerous.

But maybe it isn't fear, maybe it's something else. That's what Adam is really afraid of.

 

* * *

 

Jordan shows up at around midday every day after that, but he does not come near Adam and does not speak to him other than to answer questions or give him directions. Soon Adam is painting pitch on the desks and benches to finish them. Clattenburg and Carragher come by with Rev. Neville one day, and they've got Clattenburg's hired man, Hazard, with them. When Jordan sees them in the doorway, he sets his tools down and straightens, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Well, Adam," Clattenburg says, "will school be starting soon?"

"As soon as the slates and readers I ordered arrive," Adam replies.

"Jordan here helping you out, eh?" Carragher says, eyeing Jordan.

Jordan doesn't answer, his face stony.

"You're lucky, Adam," Carragher continues. "Jordan doesn't usually help anyone."

"He has been immensely helpful," Adam says. "More than helpful. You would have no schoolhouse without him. At least not one fit for students."

"Makes a bloke wonder why he's taken such an interest," Carragher says, rubbing his chin.

"I take an interest when there's something worth taking an interest in," Jordan says impassively, and he smiles at them all, just the corner of his mouth turning up.

"Did you know, Mr. Lallana," says Hazard, the first words he's ever spoken to Adam, "that the last schoolmaster we had left four years ago because two of our lads took him out back and beat him for giving them lines to write?"

Adam is surprised by how angry this cheap intimidation tactic makes him.

"Was one of those lads you, Eden?" Jordan asks.

Hazard's smirk vanishes and the set of his jaw starts to look ugly.

"Anyone tries anything like that with Adam, I'll bring my lads out and we'll give 'em a whipping they won't forget," Jordan says.

Adam is surprised at the readiness with which Jordan issues such a threat, and hastily reins in his own temper. "Surely it will never come to that."

"Sure it won’t," Rev. Neville barks in the same voice with which he delivers sermons on hellfire and damnation. "There are folks here who would appoint themselves the law."

"You all would best be glad there isn’t law around these parts," Jordan says. "Else I would've had you run off your crofts long ago."

"There isn’t call to be getting so excited," Carragher says blandly. "No one means Adam here any harm, do they?" When no one answers, he clears his throat. "Good work on the school." He directs this at Adam and not Jordan. "I'm sure I'll get word when the shipment comes in, and then we'll see about getting started."

"Thank you," Adam says stiffly. "Good day, gentlemen."

They leave, and the schoolhouse is silent again, the late afternoon sun slanting in through the windows and making everything glow orange.

"We'd best be getting home," Jordan says finally, after they've avoided each other's eyes for a while.

"Jordan," Adam says.

"Yeah?"

"It won't come to that, will it?"

Jordan's gaze is piercing, again, and sometimes Adam wonders if there will come a day when he won't be strong enough to hold it.

"I’m not going to let them drive us out of Lineile," he says.

Adam doesn't quite know when he became a part of Jordan's unorthodox family, but he is sure that he is included in the  _us_  Jordan is referring to, and suddenly the rest doesn't matter. They walk back to Tigh-na-Fiodha in silence, but Adam is content just to be stepping in sync with Jordan, matching his long stride and walking beside him.

 

* * *

 

The next evening Jordan goes into town for supplies with Milly and Trent, and Dejan and Mo are in the kitchen playing cards - Trent is losing pretty badly. Adam asks them why things are the way they are between Jordan and the rest of the islanders.

"Jordan was foreman for the family that used to own part of this island," Mo began. "When old man Dalglish died his wife wanted to move away. She hated it here, she was real young and came out from the Highlands somewhere. So she sold the croft to Jordan cheap to get away faster and took her children and left."

Dejan takes up the story from there. "I worked on this croft since I was sixteen. Before that I was in Croatia, Bavaria, France. A refugee. Jordan kept me on because I had nowhere to go, especially with all the revolutions in Europe that are going on at the moment. But he turned most of them other lads out and made a lot of folks mad. He got himself kind of a reputation around here."

"I see," Adam says.

"People are just jealous. Everyone either wants Jordan's croft, his seawares and his boats— or wants to work for him. They all want to find out how he’s done so well for himself. He's real smart though he doesn’t look like it," Dejan says proudly. "He doesn't suffer no fools, Jordan does."

"I am glad the importance of education and learning falls under the umbrella of his tolerance," Adam says.

Dejan throws his cards down and leans forward in his chair. "Jordan thinks it's real important. He just didn't set any store in Clattenburg knowing how to hire a good school teacher. He didn't say anything but I could tell he was surprised when he saw you that first night, on the porch. Standing, you know. Breathing and speaking, instead of lying lifelessly on his boat. _Alive._ "

"I haven't proven myself yet," Adam says, though he has to admit that the knowledge of Jordan's instant approval of him makes him happy.

Mo smiles at him reassuringly. "You'll probably be fine, being an outsider and all. Folk will forgive you for not knowing any better than to throw your lot in with Jordan."

Adam winces at the word _outsider_.

"But you were the ones who saved my life,” he retorts. “And they're the ones who decided that shunting me off to board here with him makes more sense than staying in town, where the schoolhouse is. No offence meant to any of you, of course. This is much nicer than anything I was led to expect."

Dejan laughs. "There isn’t exactly a lot of logic behind the way people feel about Jordan."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Adam says.

"No need to be sorry. We make do," Mo replies.

Dejan rolls his eyes a little bit, but he's still smiling.

 

* * *

 

The mornings are crisp and cool before Adam's shipment arrives, along with the windows. Two crates of slates and books come on the ferry to Mull, and he and Milly make the sail in one of  Jordan's boat to pick them up. Dejan helps him with the crates and the unpacking of them. School will begin the next week. He is to have about fourteen students. Maybe more, come winter. When they're done making the final arrangements, the sun is setting yet again, and Adam looks out the window at the glades stretching before him.

"'While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, and touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue,'" he recites.

"It sure is different talking to someone educated for a change," Dejan says, tossing a primer he'd been flipping through aside. "Was that a poem?"

"Keats," Adam replies.

"Hey, can I ask you a personal question?"

"Sure."

"Why are you here?"

Adam turns to look at Dejan, who is regarding him with something like suspicion. A slither of panic begins to worm into Adam’s gut, but he doesn’t show it.

"I mean," Dejan continues, unaware of Adam’s turmoil, "I can tell from your fancy clothes and fancy things and fancy way of talking that you don't need the money, and I'm sure whatever Clattenburg is paying for this aren’t much anyway. Clattenburg told Jordan before you came that we were getting a London-educated schoolmaster who had travelled the world. You running away from something? Somebody? Are you going to talk poems to dirty kids who can't afford shoes? What's in it for you?"

Adam smiles a little tightly. Now, Dejan may just be a 19th century Croatian fisherman on a rural Scottish island, but his assessment of Adam is not far off the mark. "Why does anyone travel to an island on the edge of forever? I guess I'm looking for something,” Adam replies cryptically. “Maybe something better than what I've known."

"What could be better than your book learning and London tea parties and having society ladies like in the newspapers all fluttering around you at parties every night? I think about it, sometimes, what it'd be like to be with a girl all soft and powdered and sweet and not smelling like fish," Dejan scowls.

"I wanted to do something," Adam says. "Something that mattered. I want to use that learning, as you say, for something, bring it out here where it might do some good. There's so much that goes to waste, where I come from,” he continues wistfully, reminiscing of a life long gone. “I look at a girl like you describe and feel like there's nothing to discover about her. Isn't that wrong?"

Dejan whistles. "Jesus, I could discover it a hundred thousand times and never get tired of it."

Adam laughs. "Yes, well, that's not exactly what I mean."

"I know," Dejan says, suddenly grave, and he's staring at Adam, his big brown eyes looking uncharacteristically sad. "It's a hard life out here. People are the same the world over. I haven’t read many books but I do know that."

Adam doesn't know quite how to respond, and he takes a moment to choose his words carefully. "I'm here to learn as much as to teach," he says.

Dejan nods and jumps up from the desk he's sitting on, the rare moment of gravity over.

 

* * *

 

School starts and Dejan's prediction is true; most of the children arrive with no shoes and only a wormy piece of fruit in their dinner pails. They are all very young, the ones who are too young to be of much use on the island. Only a few know their letters, and most are too in awe of the new schoolmaster to recite. This serves in Adam’s favour, as he wouldn’t have the first clue how to teach young’uns beyond basic English, maths and science. Adam is kind to them, however, and soon their natural exuberance emerges. He will have to improvise.

Adam takes them on walks to study the local flora and fauna and reads Shakespeare and Shelley aloud by the banks of the creek, though it is but a tiny trickle this late in the season. For the most part they stare at him blankly, but then they are minding him, their attention focused, so he doesn't count it as a waste.

Clattenburg and Rev. Neville come by to observe his lessons one day, and afterward they stay to conference with Adam briefly.

"I'm not sure as I hold with all the talk of fairy tales and magic," Rev. Neville says.

" _The Odyssey_  is hardly a mere fairy tale," Adam says, wiping down the blackboard.

"Just makes sure they learn their lines and arithmetic," Rev. Neville says, picking up a reader. "And can recite the catechism."

"Of course," Adam says.

"You might be wondering why we called you out here," Clattenburg says, and Adam turns, setting the cloth down.

"I am," he says. "Pray enlighten me."

Clattenburg's eyes dart to the window. "We're growing, Adam. Our island is growing, but life is still hard out here. Those of us who were born on these isles know what it was like to turn nothing into something. We've all worked real hard. But you don't got any idea what it's like to know that people can come in and take what you worked for. The only people who ever come out to Lineile now are people like Jordan Henderson who are just waiting to snatch up everything we've built up, taking it from right under our noses. It's real hard to get people out here, new people, who will see things our way. Hell, it's hard to get people to come here at all. We needed to get you out here, help us learn all them things these outsiders know that makes it possible for them to come in and take advantage. So." Clattenburg turns back to Adam and smiles, simple and slow. "Just help us do that, alright?"

Adam is silent, not really knowing how to answer this speech. Then they're all startled by the crack of thunder.

Rev. Neville hurries to the door. "Looks like we are getting even more rain, praise be."

"You'd best hurry home," Clattenburg says to Adam, donning his hat. "If it starts to rain you'll be soaked through." In a flash he's gone.

"Thank you for the helpful tip," Adam mutters, and gathers up his things. After a few more loud cracks of thunder, the sky darkens in earnest. There is no gradual increase in raindrops; it is a sudden onslaught. Adam is worried about his books getting wet more than his clothes, so he decides to wait a while before starting back, hoping the rain will let up soon. He composes a letter to his mother—his _real_ mother, back in the future— in his head, and gets hung up on describing Jordan. After he realizes he has spent nearly three-quarters of an hour trying to decide whether Jordan's eyes are blue or grey, he shakes himself and stands up. The rain shows no sign of letting up, but there is no hail, at least, and the lightning has stopped, so he decides to brave the walk, leaving his books behind. He locks up the schoolhouse and has taken no more than ten steps at most before he is completely soaked.

It has been dry these past few days that the rain feels good, actually, though of course his mother would admonish him and tell him he would catch his death. The roads are now muddy, large puddles forming, and Adam's shoes are soon soaked through too. Adam feels like laughing, water dripping down like a waterfall from the brim of his hat, the air humid and yet cool. His dinner pail fills up with water too many times to count.

By the time the red bricks of Tigh-na-Fiodha comes into view, the rain has let up somewhat, but the sky is even darker. He enters from the back door, which is open, probably to let some air move through the house.

Adam is about to walk into the kitchen, but he stops short in the doorway, because Jordan is there, and he's peeling his wet shirt off over his head, his suspenders hanging around his hips, a puddle of water at his feet on the floor. There is a strange and elaborate painting on Jordan's side, dark ink immortalized against his ribcage. It’s crude, but Adam is still mesmerized by it. He doesn’t even think that anyone in these parts, in these times, would have tattoos on their skin – but evidently he is proved wrong. Adam feels his cheeks flush, not knowing whether to back away and hope Jordan hasn't heard him or walk in and pretend to be unaffected. Before he can make up his mind, Jordan turns and sees Adam in the doorway.

He smiles at Adam, and Adam's heart is thumping wildly in his chest.

"You caught in the rain too?" he says, sounding amused, and Adam doesn't know where to look, feeling like he's been knocked stupid. Jordan's neck and arms are tanned, but his torso is very pale.

"Yes," he says tightly.

"Want to take your things off so they can dry over the stove?"

Adam doesn't really know how to refuse without sounding strange. He doesn't know what this thing is that Jordan has awakened in him, but it coils in his stomach now, making him hyper-aware of everything, the air, the rivulets of water dripping down his face and neck that make him shiver.

He hasn’t felt like this in a long, long time.

He hasn’t felt like it mattered since…ever.

Jordan crosses over. "You're shivering," he says. "Here, before you make yourself sick."

He reaches out for the buttons on Adam's shirt, which is clinging to his chest. Adam hastily brings his own hands up and backs away, turning around to undo the buttons and compose himself. He shrugs it off, and when he turns around Jordan is looking out the window, hands gripping the window frame tightly.

Adam drapes his shirt over the line just above the stove. "I'll just go up and find some dry clothes," he says unnecessarily. Jordan doesn't respond, so Adam leaves, wondering if he gave himself away, if something in Adam's shaking hands revealed everything to Jordan, and he feels a little sick, assuring himself that there is no way Jordan could know if Adam did not say anything, and making a thousand wild promises to himself that he will never ever breathe a word of it to anyone.

 

* * *

 

Adam wakes a few mornings later to the sound of gunshots and dogs barking, and then the whooping laughter of Studge and Gini. He hasn't really had a chance to get to know them, since they often camp out by the pier and only come back to dump cartloads of fish and crabs before heading back out. Jordan rides out to check up on them occasionally but for the most part they are left to their own devices. They must have come back sometime in the night.

He gets up and pushes his shutters open just in time to see Jordan come storming out, fury in his face, and pull Studge up by his shirt collar and say something inaudible to him, right in his face. Then he lets Studge go with a jerk, glares at Gini, and pushes past them to the house.

When Adam goes down to breakfast, he finds Jordan silently and methodically cleaning a shotgun at the table, a furrow between his eyebrows. Dejan is at the table, too, and Mo gives Adam an apologetic look as he silently sets a plate of beans and toast down before him.

"What was the commotion I heard this morning?" Adam asks. Dejan grimaces and raises his hand to his forehead, as if he's saluting Adam for his bravery in broaching the subject.

Jordan looks up at Adam briefly, but he goes back to cleaning the gun, and for a few moments Adam thinks his question will be ignored, but Jordan finally speaks. "Mourinho likes to breed dogs, only he doesn't train them right."

"Mourinho," Adam repeats, trying to place a face to the name. "That must be Sally's father."

"Yeah, he's married to Carragher' oldest daughter," Dejan adds helpfully.

"Trouble is, they get into other people’s crofts and dig up people's gardens and they bite children. And Studge keeps trying to shoot them."

"Is that a bad thing?" Adam asks.

"No," Jordan says baldly. "Not if that was all there was too it. But those fuckers in town are just waiting for an excuse to bring a mob out here and call me out on something, and you can bet the death of one of Mourinho's mongrels on my croft would be more than enough for him to go crying to Clattenburg and Carragher."

"What could they do to you?"

"They may be stupid but I bet they can be real creative," Dejan says through a mouthful of beans. As usual, more food seems to have found its way down his chin than into his mouth. "I don't think we really want to find out."

"Maybe I could have a talk with them. Pay a call on this Mourinho," Adam offers.

"Don't involve yourself," Jordan says shortly, and he snaps the barrel back in place, laying the gun on the table. "C'mon, Dejan, time to head out."

Dejan ruffles Mo's hair on his way out behind Jordan, and Mo looks after him fondly.

"The more I hear about this situation, the worse it sounds," Adam says. "I want to help but I'm afraid I'll make things worse."

Mo sighs, picking at his food as he always does. "I think Jordan thought he was far enough out that he would be left in peace," he says. "But it's hard for him, when he sees things that aren’t fair and can't fix them. I think something must have happened to him when he was young. It's like he's trying to atone for something. He stays here like he wants to fight them, but I don't know why he would. We'd all follow him wherever he went. Well, I would if I could."

Adam looks up from his plate, surprised. Mo hardly ever makes reference to his illness.

"Jordan is so good to me, I mean he looks after all of us. He's like our own Da. It's easy to forget that he isn’t much older than any of us. And he doesn't owe any of us anything, but he helps us anyway. He helps me. Sometimes I hate knowing that he'd never leave me behind, because I know that I'm holding him here."

Mo spears a bean with his fork and then drops it, and it makes a clattering sound. He looks up at Adam. "When I tell him that, he says I think too much of myself. But I know it's true. He'd be gone in a second if it weren't for me. I hate that."

Adam doesn't know what to say that wouldn't sound trite. "Don't hate it," was all he could think of. "Be comforted by it. Most people's blood relations wouldn't do as much." Adam thinks of his own family— his real family, back in the present. His father, his mother, officious and apathetic uncles and aunts and cousins. For a moment he thinks he wouldn’t miss them, before he decides that he does, a tiny bit. It surprises him. "I would think he does it because you deserve someone looking after you. Everyone does. Anyway, you can't be sure that there aren't a hundred other reasons Jordan wants to stay. He seems to love his work."

"I'm afraid of what will happen to me if he goes, and I'm afraid of what will happen if he stays. You haven’t seen the worst of it yet. People have been nicer since you came. They're afraid of what an outsider will think. But it's bad. And no one will let me talk about it, any of it, not even Dejan. He just tells me to shut up, that everything will be alright."

Adam reaches over to put his hand over Mo's wrist. It feels thin under his hand, bony and frail. "Well, I won't tell you that," he says. "But I will say that no one can predict the future, and every man is in charge of his own life. Jordan wouldn't stay if he didn't want to, if he didn't think it was worth it."

"Will you stay?" Mo asks abruptly.

Adam withdraws his hand and resumes eating his breakfast. "That will depend largely on whether the good people of this island approve of my teaching methods," he says.

"Even if they don't," Mo insists. "Promise you'll stay. Please."

It's surprising, the vehemence in his voice. "Why?" Adam asks.

"Because," Mo says. "Jordan needs you. He takes care of all of us, but he needs help. He needs you."

Adam feels himself flush. Again. He wants to ask Mo what he means, why he would say such a thing, how it is possible that Jordan needs anyone. Jordan barely even speaks to Adam, and certainly never asks him for help. But he can't bring himself to ask, the words too embarrassing, too revealing.

"Promise," Mo repeats.

"I'll stay as long as I'm welcome," Adam says, because there's something about Jordan that has roped him in and secured Adam's unswerving loyalty, just as he's done with these other men who cling to him.

Mo smiles at him, and Adam hopes that what Mo has said about Jordan is true, because Adam will never leave now, not if he can help it. It's not Fiodha or the croft or Lineile that he's binding himself to, though. Somehow he thinks Mo knows this.

 

* * *

 

Weeks pass, and it gets cold. Jordan and the men work even harder because the days are getting considerably shorter, and they often don't return until long after dark. Mo has several bad spells that result in being laid up for three or four days at a time. Dejan and Gini step in to help with the house chores, and Adam does what he can in the morning before school and in the evening after he returns. But Mo won't hear of staying in bed longer than he needs to, and both times he is up again soon, his breathing laboured but steady.

It is a cold Saturday morning early in November when Studge thinks he sees a dog lurking in the grass. He shoots at it, and is surprised when he hears the pained cry of a woman and not a dog. Jordan is out trawling in the oceans with Milly and Gini and Dejan, and Adam and Trent and Mo are still at the breakfast table.

They run out, and Trent turns a bit green when he sees the woman lying in the grass, blood spilling from her leg, her stomach very noticeably distended.

"Oh, fuck," he moans. "Oh fuck. Fuck," he repeats over and over.

Adam bends over her quickly, feeling for her pulse. "Someone ride for a doctor," he snaps. "We've got to get her inside and try to staunch the bleeding."

"The nearest doctor is a good fifteen miles from here, on Mull," Studge says, regarding the scene impassively. "You think she'll make the journey worth it?"

"You, you fetch the doctor," Adam says, keeping a hold on his temper.

Studge blinks at him slowly for a few moments.

"Now!" Adam barks, and finally Studge moves toward the barn to saddle a horse.

The girl is very young. She has dark hair, a dirty face, and dirty clothes. Her eyelids flicker, and she moans a little bit.

"Trent, can you lift her and take her into the house?"

Trent is still cursing and seems to be having a hard time bringing himself to touch her.

"Trent?"

Mo arrives on the scene. "Fuck, Trent," he says.

"Do you all know this woman?" Adam asks.

Mo grimaces. "She's—fuck, what have you done to her, Trent?"

"I didn't do nothing! I didn't know she was—fuck, look at her, God  _damn_."

The truth hits Adam far too late. "Is that baby yours, Trent?"

Trent looks like he's about to cry.

"Get it together," Adam says firmly. "She can't lie here, it's too cold. I wonder that she was out here lurking in the grass in the first place. Was she waiting for you?"

"No! I mean, I didn't—I didn't know," Trent says. "Fuckin'—hell," he says again, and leans down to scoop her up in his arms with surprising gentleness. Still, she cries out, and faints soon after being hoisted up.

They go in the house and Adam directs Trent to put her in his room, since it's the only one besides Jordan's that isn't being shared.

Mo boils some water and he and Adam try to remove her dress, Trent pacing in front of the doorway and wringing his hands. They soak the towels in the water to dab at the wound, which is bleeding enough to make a mess, but not so much that Adam thinks it will be life-threatening.

"What was Studge doing with that gun after Jordan's told him not to shoot at Mourinho's dogs a thousand times?" Adam asks, the question mostly rhetorical.

"I didn't know she was going to have a baby," Trent moans. "Fuck, we was just having fun. I hadn't even seen her in months. I don't know what she was doing here. Her parents—"

"Yes?" Adam prods, turning to glare at him.

"She must've run away," Trent says lamely.

"So she does, in fact, have parents," Adam says. "And presumably they would want to know where she is."

"Hell, I don't know," Trent says. "I mean, yeah, she’s got parents. But they didn't want her giving me the time of day."

"Can you blame them?" Adam says coldly.

"Jordan's going to kill me," Trent moans again. And then he turns and punches his fist at the wall so hard that the bureau on the other side of the room rattles.

"Is that what you're worried about? What  _Jordan_  will think? She's been shot! Jordan is going to be the least of your problems if it turns out that Studge has killed her and her baby, and all because she came here looking for you, because you didn't do the honourable thing."

"I know, I know," Trent says, and he sinks down on the floor, back against the wall, cradling his injured hand, which is bleeding at the knuckles. "I fucked up."

"What's her name?" Adam asks.

"Jo," he says. "Jo Gomez."

"Should we inform them?"

"They probably kicked her out. They have too many mouths to feed as it is, they won't want another. Shit, what am I going to do?"

Adam ties a cloth around the towel Mo is holding against the wound to stop the bleeding. "You're going to sit here and watch her, for now, until Studge brings the doctor back. If she wakes up, try to get her to drink some water. Don't do anything stupid, and don't make Mo here do all the work."

"What if they didn’t come back in time?"

"Then you're going to take her to her folks and admit your fault in all this like a man. I've got to go to school; there are children waiting for me. I can't believe she was lurking around the croft. Christ," Adam says, and he gets up, wiping his hand on another towel. There's blood on his shirt, so he changes it swiftly, hoping his students won't notice the stain on his dark trousers.

The school day feels interminable, but finally it is time to dismiss the children, and Adam locks up the schoolhouse quickly, running most of the way back to the house.

Studge and the doctor still have not come, and Adam can smell blood and other unpleasantness the minute he walks in. The skin around the wound is inflamed. She feels feverish, and Trent is dabbing at her forehead with a wet washcloth.

"She's in and out," Trent says, distressed, "and she keeps complaining that her stomach hurts real bad. I think the baby might be coming. There was blood down there but it was hard to tell—and this water—I hope they come back soon."

"Do you think he actually went to get the doctor?" Adam asks Mo in a low voice.

"Yeah," Mo says, "but Doc Simon is the only doctor for miles and miles. He's hard to track down, and some emergencies are more dire than others. Studge'll find him as fast as he can. He doesn't always seem to know right from wrong but he's usually pretty good at following orders if you tell him real firm, like you did."

Finally, at around six o'clock, they hear the sound of a gig pulling up. Adam hurries downstairs, and the man who descends from the gig looks stern, but very capable. He's got a moustache and an imposing frown, but he sticks out his hand in greeting.

"Mr. Lallana, I presume," he says, and Adam shakes his hand.

"Dr. Mignolet,” Adam says, greeting the doctor by his proper surname. “Thank you for coming. She's upstairs."

Dr. Mignolet stops on the threshold to take in the scene, and he shakes his head at Trent before setting his bag down and rolling up his sleeves.

"I need to examine the wound, and I'm going to try to stitch it up, but I'll need help holding her down. Which of you is willing?"

Trent still looks green and scared, and Mo looks reluctant, so Adam steps forward. "I can help if necessary."

"Okay. The rest of you clear out, but boil these in hot water and then bring me clean water and towels."

Mo and Trent go downstairs, and Dr. Mignolet grimaces and unwraps the makeshift bandage they'd rolled around her thigh. The hole is clearly visible, blood oozing out sluggishly.

Her head moves slightly and her eyelids flutter.

"Good, she's awake," Dr. Mignolet says. "I'm going to administer some laudanum, but even that won't dull her senses completely. I'm going to have to make sure there isn't anything still left in there."

"Right," Adam says, swallowing hard.

Mo comes back with the water and the cleaned instruments, and Adam watches as Dr. Mignolet cleans the wound and administers the laudanum. Then he directs Adam to hold her still, and he sets in, digging in with his forceps to root around. She jerks and screams a little and then her eyes roll back in her head, but Dr. Mignolet directs Adam not to let go. She doesn't wake up anymore, however, and soon he's done.

"How far along is she?" Dr. Mignolet asks after he's stitched up the wound and is rolling a bandage around it.

"I don't know. I didn't know of her existence until this morning when Studge shot her."

"She looks to be nearly at term," Dr. Mignolet says grimly. "Send Trent in here."

Adam goes to fetch Trent and sits down at the table in the kitchen as Trent climbs the stairs warily.

"Are Jordan and the others due back tonight?" Adam asks Mo.

"Yeah," Mo says.

They sit and wait, Mo preparing something for supper and Adam scrubbing at the blood-stained shirts and Jo's filthy dress. He's just hanging them to dry on the line above the stove when he hears raucous singing that signifies the return of Jordan and the others. Studge is nowhere to be found, of course, probably out hiding in the pier, in one of those boats.

Adam looks out the window and sees them pull up. Jordan leaps down from the box and is unhitching the bogie when Milly points to the doctor's gig. Jordan's head whips around and he immediately runs toward the house.

The door crashes open and Jordan thunders in, eyes darting around immediately to Mo.

"Mo," he says, his voice cracking. "You—you're alright," he says, then shifts his gaze to Adam. "Why is the doctor's gig here?"

Adam and Mo exchange a glance, unsure how to respond, and then Dejan and Milly and Gini rush in, all wide-eyed and waiting for the story.

"A girl was in the yard," Mo begins reluctantly. "Turns out she was Trent's lassie, and she—" He gestures at his stomach, making a kind of circular motion. "He didn't know, Jordan," he says, almost pleadingly. "Anyway, she was here, only we didn't know, and—and Studge thought she was a dog sneaking around in the grass, and he—he fired a shot at her and hit her in the leg."

"Studge—shot—a woman—a  _pregnant_  woman—on—my—croft?" Jordan said, very slowly, with dangerous calm.

"Hell," Milly said. "Didn't I tell you he was a crazy motherfucker?"

"Holy shit," Dejan says, and Gini whistles. Then they all start talking at once, a cacophony of voices, but Adam is silent, and Jordan is too, his eyes hard as agates and his cheek moving like he's clenching his teeth.

They're all interrupted by a scream from above, and everyone raises their eyes to the ceiling as if they can all see through it.

"Where is Studge?" Jordan asks quietly.

Adam knows Jordan well enough by now to know that he is furious despite the calm tenor of his voice.

"Haven't seen him since he brought Doc Simon," Mo says.

Jordan turns wordlessly to pick up the shotgun sitting by the door on his way out.

Adam hurries to follow him out onto the back porch.

"Jordan," Adam says urgently, but Jordan doesn't turn, just strides purposefully toward the barn. "Jordan. Jordan!" He reaches for Jordan's shoulder and turns him around.

Jordan's eyes are snapping with his anger, and Adam can see how it's barely contained, as if he had only been holding it in for the sake of the other boys, and now, out in the open, with only Adam as witness, it is breaking free.

"What are you going to do?" Adam says.

"I'm going to find Studge and I'm going to scare the shit out of him. I'll shoot  _his_  leg off if I have to."

"You can't do that," Adam says firmly.

"I can and I will," Jordan says, but he doesn't move, his body tense as a bow string, as if daring Adam to try to stop him.

"He's just a young lad, Jordan," Adam says quietly.

"Yeah, and he's shot a girl, and now the whole island will be after us, and then what?"

"Shooting Studge's leg off isn't going to change any of that."

Jordan throws the gun aside and turns to lean against the fence, his head hanging between his shoulders.

Adam goes forward to stand beside Jordan, not getting too close, but wanting very badly to put a hand to his shoulder again and let it linger this time. It's cold enough that he can see every forceful breath Jordan huffs out.

"He'll come back," Adam says. "And then you decide what to say to him. You could tell him he needs to leave, or you could give him another chance."

"It's my fault," Jordan says.

"Jordan," Adam says, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice.

"No, it's— I stir all of them up by saying things I shouldn't say. About Clattenburg and Carragher and Mourinho and all of them. Studge's just shooting at the dogs because he thinks that's the kind of revenge we should be taking on them." He turns to look at Adam. "You're right, Adam. He’s just a lad. They all are, except Milly. And I shouldn't be giving them stupid ideas about fairness and justice, because there’s no such thing in the world, and any time anyone tries to bring it about, things usually go to shite and everything turns out wrong."

It might be the most tragic speech Adam's ever heard anyone utter. "That's not true," Adam says. "There's justice in the world. There's justice here, if we only knew how to bring it about. The world is so much bigger than this place. Than Lineile. Someday you'll see."

Jordan shakes his head. "The world," he says, and smiles ruefully. "I know more about it than you think, Adam. Do you know what I think about all the time?"

Adam shakes his head, suddenly feeling breathless. Jordan has never confided anything this personal before, and Adam knows they must be on some kind of precipice, these confidences of Jordan's the gentle force that will tip them over the edge to plunge into something unknown.

"I think about the oceans," Jordan says. "That's all I remember of my father, my real father, standing on the deck of the boat we came on, looking at the waves breaking against the hull. The water was black. And I was sure I would fall in and be swallowed up, if he hadn't been holding me so tight."

His hands clench around the wooden fencepost. "They all died, my dad and my mom and my brothers and sister, they all died of a typhoid outbreak weeks after we got here. They left England because of how bad things were there, how unfair, and they get here and..." He clears his throat. "I don't have anything of theirs, just my name. Just that memory of the sea. It’s all I have when I go out there, on Melwood, in the waters.”

"So you're right," he says, and he turns to face Adam again. "The world is bigger than this place. But it isn’t fair, no matter where you go or what you do."

"I'm sorry," Adam says, feeling foolish.

"Don't be, it’s not your fault. Here, let me show you something."

They walk around to the front door so as to bypass the kitchen, and Jordan leads Adam up the stairs and down the hall to his own bedroom, which Adam has never set foot in. Jordan goes to the corner and picks up a large rectangular object wrapped in brown paper. He unties the string and removes the paper, and Adam realizes that it is a painting, the frame ornate and looking completely out of place in this spare room.

Jordan props it against the wall and stands back, watching as Adam comes forward to peruse it more closely. It's a dark painting, depicting a boat being tossed by the waves in weak light obscured by forbidding clouds.

It was one of the paintings Adam had seen, back in 2018, when he was in Jordan’s bedroom. The night he came to Tigh-na-Fiodha.

The night he fell.

"It’s not an original. Mrs. Dalglish left it for me before she went back to Edinburgh, because I used to stare at it when I was called in to collect my wages from her."

"Who painted the original?"

"Some man named Turner."

Adam keeps staring at it, and the longer he looks at it the more he gets the uncanny feeling that he is looking straight into Jordan's heart. It's lonely, shadowed, the boat helpless amidst the force of the sky from above and the water below.

"It's beautiful," he says. "I think—I think I see why you don't have it up in the parlour." He turns to watch Jordan looking at it.

Jordan nods, and then replaces the paper over the painting, tying the string loosely and resting it carefully against the wall where it had been before.

They go downstairs again and wait with the other men for Studge to come back, or for someone to come down and tell them what is happening, the silence punctured by occasional screams and sobbing from upstairs. Dejan falls asleep with his head on the table, Gini takes out his harmonica, and Milly carves at a block of wood with his knife.

"We should try to get some sleep," Mo says finally. "You boys have to be up and out in five hours. It's almost one."

Adam realizes with a jolt that he has nowhere to sleep, since his room has been converted to a surgery.

"You'll have to share mine," Jordan says, watching him. "If the idea doesn't offend you."

Adam swallows. "Of course not. If there are some blankets I could spread on the floor—"

"Don't be stupid," Jordan says. "The bed's big enough. I built it myself, I ought to know."

Everything about the idea of sleeping with Jordan in a bed that Jordan built makes Adam incredibly nervous, but he nods.

It's practical; sleeping on the floor is cold and uncomfortable. So it shouldn't be strange, and none of the other men think anything of it, used to sleeping next to each other out in the open, in tents, in haystacks to keep warm. With anyone else, Adam wouldn't think anything of it either. But Jordan has changed everything for him, so much that Adam is starting to wonder if he ever knew himself. He follows Jordan up to the bedroom.

The last time he was in Jordan’s bedroom, sleeping on Jordan’s bed, was in 2018. Who would have thought?

There was no sign of the torn portrait of Jordan, the one with the stern face and the cold eyes. There was no sign of the daguerreotypes that Adam had found, back in the distant future, either.

"When I finished building this big house, I didn't ever think I'd be able to fill all these rooms," Jordan says, setting the lamp down on a shelf and beginning to unbutton his shirt.

"So why'd you build it?"

"I thought I was building it for my own family. This was going to be the bed for my wife."

Adam stares at Jordan, frowning.

Jordan looks around and sees Adam staring, so he smiles easily. "You wondering what happened?"

"I don't want to pry."

"She worked for Mrs. Dalglish, and I was a fisherman. I used to walk her home from church and town meetings, and she was sweet on me, or she seemed to be. When Mrs. Dalglish offered to sell me the place real cheap I asked her to marry me. She said yes. We tore down the old house and started building the new one, and she told me she was happy. But there was another fisherman. We were friends. She ran off with him to Dundee about a week before I finished the house."

Adam doesn't know what to say, so he just watches Jordan, whose smile never wavers.

"Don't need to look like that," Jordan says. "I wouldn't have given her what she wanted. She wanted more than a just a house from her husband, I think."

"She would've had you, too," Adam says.

Jordan shakes his head and turns his back to Adam, his broad shoulders slumped forward. "No. She saw how it would be; she was always smarter than me. Did the right thing."

"But you were in love with her," Adam says, though it's more like a question than a protest.

"No, I don't think I was. I was still...I don't know."

"What?"

Jordan turns to smile at Adam again. "Waiting for something, I guess."

Adam can't tear his eyes away from Jordan's gaze, feels paralyzed by it, like a small animal caught in a cobra's stare, and yet he feels no fear.

"Waiting for what?" Adam says, though he thinks maybe he knows, but he wants to hear Jordan say it, he wants it so badly.

Jordan moves toward him, and Adam can see, even in the dim lamplight, that maybe the drink has affected him after all. His eyes are bright, something unleashed in them, and Adam's breath starts to come faster. He licks his lips.

"Jordan," he says. He feels his back press up against the wall, and yet Jordan keeps moving forward. "Jordan," he says again, a little desperate—for Jordan to come closer or move away? He doesn't know, and he hopes Jordan will make the decision for him, because—

"Do you know what you walked into, Adam?" Jordan says, his voice very low, and he's so close that Adam has to tilt his head back so far to look up at him. “When you drowned and caught in my fishnet and dumped on my boat?”

"No," Adam whispers, because it’s the truth.

Suddenly Jordan looks sad, his eyes going soft, so soft.

Then he moves away, and it takes Adam a moment to realize that Jordan is gone, across the room already. "We should get some sleep," Jordan says. He climbs into the bed and turns his back to Adam. Adam sheds his trousers and shirt and gets in, turning his back to Jordan, too, but he's more awake than he's ever been in his life, and he knows he won't sleep at all that night, and not just because of the moans and screams coming from down the hall.

 

* * *

tbc

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lineile is not a real island- it's the Gaelic translation of Liverpool
> 
> Many liberties have been taken with history in this fic. Apologies.
> 
> Also apologies for defamation of characters esp for Clattenburg, Hazard, Neville and Carra. *runs and hides*
> 
> Many thanks to booperesque, to whom I owe a lot.


	2. a mari usque ad mare

A few hours later Adam is staring into the grey light coming through the window when he hears something that sounds like a baby crying. He sits up and turns to shake Jordan awake.

"Jordan, wake up," he says, the material of Jordan's undershirt bunching up under his hands, but Adam can still feel the warmth of Jordan's arm under his hand, and he removes it.

"What?" Jordan says, turning around to look at Adam over his shoulder. "What is it?"

"I heard something like a baby crying. Do you think—?"

Jordan turns back and sighs once, then pushes himself up so that he's sitting up. It's cold enough in the room that their breath mists, so they hurry to pull their clothes on and make their way down the hall to Adam's room.

The smell is even worse than it was before, humid and rank, and there is blood everywhere on the bed, and the girl, Jo, looks like she's dead, her skin grey and her eyes closed, her hair matted and damp.

Dr. Mignolet's face is haggard, and he's wiping his hands off with a piece of torn cloth. Trent is holding a small bundle. He looks up when Jordan and Adam enter.

"It's a girl," he says, and he looks like he's been crying. He stands up. "God Almighty, I’ve never seen anything as bad as what I seen in the last few hours."

"Is she alive?" Jordan asks, gesturing toward the bed.

"Yes," Dr. Mignolet says. "I can't make any guarantees, though. She lost a lot of blood. The labour kept ripping that bullet hole right back open, and she was in shock. The laudanum affected the baby, too, and slowed things. I don't know if she'll make it. She can't feed the baby. The state of her makes me think she hasn't eaten well or regularly in a long time."

Trent holds out the baby to Jordan like an offering. Jordan makes no move to take it.

"I have to go milk the goat," Trent says. "There’s nothing else we can feed her."

Still Jordan doesn't relent, staring hard at Trent.

"Please, Jordan," Trent says desperately, and Adam knows he isn't just asking Jordan to hold the baby.

Finally Jordan looks down at the bundle in Trent's arms. He reaches over and pulls the sheet back from the baby's face. It is still mewling weakly, its body all wrinkled and scrawny and red and ugly, head misshapen and eyes closed.

Trent holds it out to Jordan again, and Jordan grimaces a little, but he takes it, holding it awkwardly, one hand under its head and one hand under its bottom.

Adam looks over to the doctor, but he is asleep in the chair next to the bed. Adam takes a quilt out of the closet and drapes it over him and they go downstairs.

Mo is up already, stroking the fire in the stove, and Dejan soon comes in, blowing on his fingers. "Gini and Milly's got the feeding done since Trent couldn't do it," he says. And then he looks up at Jordan and whistles. "Holy shit," he says, and laughs. "Never thought I'd see the fucking day."

"Quiet, Dejan," Jordan says. "Don't use words like that in front of the baby."

Adam stifles a smile.

Mo turns around and stands up, moving toward Jordan to peer over the sheet and look at the baby.

"You want to hold it for a while?" Jordan asks.

Mo smiles and nods, sitting down in a chair and holding out his arms.

Jordan hands the baby over, and Mo cradles it much more naturally than Jordan did, letting it rest in the crook of his arm and touching its cheek with the tip of his finger. Dejan comes forward to lean over Mo's shoulder and look down at it.

"Scrawny, innit?"

"It's a girl," Adam informs him.

"I wonder what they'll name her," Mo says.

"I think they should name her Concertina," Dejan says.

Mo glares up at him impatiently. "Do you even know what a concertina is?"

"No," Dejan says. "I just like the sound of it. We could call her Tina for short."

"Shut up, I think she looks more like an Ailsa."

They bicker about her name for a while, and then Trent comes in with a pail of milk.

"How we gonna feed it to her?" he asks, setting the pail down on the table.

"Use a clean cloth, dip it in the milk and let her suck on it," Mo says. Then he hands the baby to Dejan. "Here, I'll get one." He disappears to rummage around in the bag of rags they keep in the linen closet.

"Trent," Jordan says. "I'm not going to let you dump off the care of this baby on Mo. He tries to do too much as it is."

"I know that, Jordan."

"How are you going to support a wife and a kid? You’re going to be a hired man your whole life?"

"Shit, Jordan, I don't know. I hadn't planned on thinking about any of this so soon."

Jordan stands up, straightening his belt and then letting his hands fall to his sides. "You'd best start thinking about it. Stop blowing all the wages I pay you on whiskey and tobacco. Start going to church. And maybe if you save up enough I'll let you buy a croft on Iona for a real good price."

Trent looks up at Jordan briefly, then nods his head and stares back down at his hands again. "Thanks, Jordan."

Jordan goes outside, and Dejan starts singing the baby songs. It cries even louder, but soon Mo comes back with a clean strip of cloth and they settle in to feed and coo over it.

 

* * *

 

By the time Adam comes home from school that afternoon, the doctor's gig is gone, Trent is asleep in the chair next to Jo's bed, Mo is scrubbing the kitchen floor, and the other men are out in the field.

"Did Studge ever show his face?" Adam asks Mo.

"Yeah," Mo says, wiping at his forehead with his sleeve. "Jordan told him if he ever so much as looked at that shotgun again, he'd be turned out. His wages are going to go toward paying the doctor's fee. And he's to sleep in the barn behind the cottage until he can show that he's civilized enough to be among people again."

"Won't he freeze out there?"

"Nah. You never slept in a haystack before?"

Adam shakes his head. "Can't say that I have."

"It's warm. Probably better than sharing that room with Gini and Trent. Trent snores awful loud."

Jo's fever breaks four days later, and soon she is on the mend. She comes downstairs for the first time on the day of the first snow they get, and she sits down in a chair at the table. Mo puts the baby in her arms.

Since Adam's only experience of her has been when she is delirious with fever or dead to the world, he is surprised to see how animated she is, even when still weak and sore.

"It sure does a body good to be sitting upright in a chair and, instead of lyin' on my back in bed. I'm done with lyin' on my back, I suppose lyin' on my back was what got me into trouble in the first place, innit?” She laughs, a tiny tinkling sound, and her eyes are bright, darting around the kitchen to take everything in. "Everythin' is so fine here. Them big windows, gosh, I always wished my pa and ma had a place with big windows, but we was never what you would call wealthy. I used to say that I wanted a house made out of nothin' but glass, a glass house like in them stories, though I s'pose that means anybody passin' by could see in, but of course if I could afford a glass house I'd have me some real pretty lace curtains, too, and I'd pull those over but they'd still let the light in. But I guess you know all about glass and lace and fancy things, seein' as how you're from London?" she asks.

"Well, I’m not exactly from London, but—"

"My sister Minnie must be in your class, she's about seven years old, I think. Do you know her?"

"No, there's no one by that name—"

"I guess Pa hasn't changed his mind 'bout lassies and schoolin'. I can't wait 'til little Isla here is old enough to go to school and learn all them big words and how to read, I’ve never learned, my pa says a lassie don't need to know those things. He didn't even want us in church, but Ma insisted so we went. I could never read the Bible but I knew all the hymns by heart. I love to sing."

She looks down at the baby, her voice softer. "I guess I can't show my face in church now, since I'm livin' in sin. Do you think God will forgive me? Or forgive Isla, at least?" She turns beseeching eyes on Adam.

"There is a Psalm," Adam says, from his readings. "'As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.'"

She beams at him, her eyes watering a little, and clutches her baby closer. "Thank you," she says. "That is a comfort. Even if Trent wanted to marry me I'm not at all sure Rev. Neville would marry us. I daren't go back home, either, 'cause they'll—" She bites her lip.

"They'll what?" Adam prods.

She shakes her head. "I shouldn't say. I don't know what they'd do. They don't care what happens to me and they don't have any idea where I am and I hope it stays that way."

Adam knows it's only a matter of time before Rev. Neville or someone else from town comes by on pretence of paying a social call. Soon they'll find out, and it will get back to the girl's parents that she is living in a house full of unmarried men. But there's nothing to be done; she has nowhere to go, and anyway, she belongs with Trent. Jordan speaks of sailing over to Oban come spring and seeing if the minister there will marry them. The child hasn't even been baptized, but poor Jo is the only one who seems to be worried about that.

Trent is sleeping with her in what used to be Adam's room upstairs. Adam moves everything of his into Jordan's room, and they sleep with their backs to each other every night. Adam gets used to the rhythm of Jordan's breathing, takes comfort in it when he can't sleep, and sometimes hates it so much, hates how much it makes him want things he can't even name. But there is also the more mundane comfort of another warm body as the nights get colder and colder.

There's a final rush to get the last haul of seawares on land, and all the crops on Jordan’s croft, too. By now much of the remainder is withered and rotting from frost and rain, but they rush to sort out the good ones and get it packed and hauled off. Jordan’s farm is not huge, but the horse traders will come through in spring and Jordan wants two more cart horses. They'll butcher a pig in January, and Jordan wants to build a fence along the road leading up to Fiodha. They have more mouths to feed, and Adam knows Jordan wants to set aside money for doctor's fees, in case Mo's condition worsens. Then there is the tax, and Jordan is careful with all of his bookkeeping. Adam likes to watch his fingers holding his pen, enjoying the novelty of Jordan's hands with ink stains on them. Adam's own hands are getting rougher and stronger, and he is proud of them.

Soon it gets cold enough that the ground is too hard to work, the seas almost frozen over. The men have nothing to do but sit indoors all day, antsy and irritable and shouting at each other. Milly gives long sermons about his life philosophies, which always rile Gini and Studge, and they argue loudly and fruitlessly. Sometimes fistfights break out between Studge and Dejan, and Jordan does nothing to stop them, letting them knock over furniture and crash into the walls. Adam is glad to escape to school most days. The walk is excruciating in the cold and invigorating all at once.

He gets a few more lectures from Rev. Neville and Clattenburg about the inappropriate subject matter that he's teaching; apparently some parents have complained about the profane and perverse nature of some of Adam's lesson materials.

"I will not apologize for exposing these children to the beauty and richness of our literary traditions," Adam says calmly. "I am giving them a taste of the world."

Milly leaves soon to visit his family, and everyone assures Adam that he will be back when it's time to start the planting and the fishing. Jordan starts spending long hours in the barn behind the house around mid-December, and two days before Christmas he emerges with a small two-person sleigh.

"Come out for a sleigh ride, Adam," he calls, waving Adam over. Adam throws on his coat, hat, scarf and gloves and they're off.

Jordan is silent as he drives, but the silence is peaceful, the snow muffling everything, white stretching out for miles and miles around them.

"You alright?" Jordan asks.

"Yes," Adam answers as he gazes out at the landscape, feeling completely content in the moment. It's like they are the only two people in the world.

"I thought I could use this to drive you to school and back," Jordan says.

Adam looks over at Jordan, who is still staring straight ahead.

"I'd like that," he says, and can barely contain his happiness at the thought of so much time spent alone with Jordan, sitting side by side, so close their sides are touching under the heavy quilt Jordan has tucked around them.

On Christmas Eve, all of them but Mo, Trent, Jo and the baby go into town for the service. A few people greet Adam, and some of the girls make eyes at Jordan and Dejan, but for the most part they are ignored, everyone giving them cold looks and a wide berth.

The next day, Jo helps Mo and Dejan a Christmas dinner. They have ham and mince pies, and after dinner they sit around the fireplace in the parlour and eat shriveled apples from the cellar. Jo forgives Studge for shooting her when they're all sleepy and full and warm, and he is allowed to come back into the house to sleep.

After New Year's Day school begins again, and several older girls and boys join the class. There are two brawny boys, Ben and Jacob, who are still in grade two despite being nearly seventeen years old, and they torment the younger children and say rude things to Adam, but Jordan is always there watching them at the end of the day. Sometimes he even comes at midday to bring Adam his dinner and eat with him, the children all staring at him and cowering away, though he never speaks to them.

"Things must be really unbearable at home if you're driving out here three times a day," Adam says, though he's always glad to see Jordan.

"I get cabin fever," Jordan says, but he's smiling.

Adam is almost dreading spring, since it means that he won't have anyone to tell funny stories to on his way home, won't have anyone to give him pithy yet sound advice about handling the troubling behaviour, won't have anyone to sit silently by his side. He doesn't know when or how he came to need Jordan so much, because Jordan hardly says anything. But just his presence is such a comfort to Adam, and the way he looks at Adam makes Adam feel like he is speaking a silent language that only Adam can understand.

On a morning in late January a blizzard moves in quickly while Adam is at school. A few parents arrive to collect their children, and Adam allows a few of the older children whose homes are in town to run home before the snow gets too heavy, but many of them live too far away to make it. The snow piles higher and higher outside, and Adam experiences a moment of panic when he realizes that they are probably not going to be able to leave the school that day. Luckily there is plenty of coal in the bucket, though more than a few feet away from the stove it is uncomfortably cold. He hopes the children who left found their way home in time.

He has the remaining children come forward and huddle around the stove. They play games and Adam persuades them not to eat everything in their dinner pails, since they might be stuck here for a few days.

The snow soon covers the windows, and it's impossible to tell time by the light coming through the window. Several of the children start to cry, and all of them are restless and hungry and not warm enough. Adam boils some water out of the stone crock by the door, which has a thin layer of ice on top. They each take a few sips of hot water and then huddle together on the floor in front of the stove to sleep.

Adam takes each of them outside when they need to urinate so that they don't wander too far, using the shovel to dig a path and then pointing it in the direction of the door so that they won't miss it and go the wrong way when they go back in. Each time it gets harder to go out, the cold biting into their bones so quickly that their teeth don't even have time to chatter. Soon they don't bother, pissing into jars they'd used to study tadpoles in, and Adam dumps it out the windows into the snow.

It is still snowing the next day, though it's barely possible to tell day from night because the clouds are so thick and the snow piling so high. They recite poems and sing songs and eat a little more out of their dinner pails, but most of them have run out of food. Adam gives his food to the younger ones. They are now mostly listless and quiet, bundled up in all their clothes, faces grey and wan. Adam's own fingers are grey with cold, he can see, and toward the end of the second day he begins to feel too weak to stand, but they continue drinking water boiled on the stove, which helps a little.

On the afternoon of the third day, Adam hears a faint scratching, and perks up. He goes to the door, which hasn't been opened in a while, and pulls it open. Snow spills into the doorway, but even better is the sound of a shovel digging them out. Excited, he rouses the children who have fallen asleep and has them listen for their deliverance.

Of course it is Jordan, Jordan with a scarf tied around his face against the cold, his eyes under the brim of his hat so  _worried_  that Adam almost runs into his arms.

He's brought them some food, but the children need it more, so Adam doesn't eat any. They decide to wait to see if other parents will arrive to collect their children. After four hours of waiting, there are just two left, and the sky is beginning to darken.

"We'll have to take these two home first," Jordan says.

They bundle up in the sleigh. The clouds are dispersing but the temperature is dropping, and everything is icy. "Don't fall asleep," Jordan warns the children.

The horse struggles, and several times they have to get out to push snow out of the way of the blades. When they're sitting, Adam catches himself drifting off. The children are silent. When he catches one of them asleep, he shakes them both and gets out of the sleigh with both of them to walk next to it for a while. It takes them nearly three hours to reach the children's homes. After they've dropped them off, one with his widowed mother, who thanks them profusely, and a girl at a tiny sod house, her parents looking almost disappointed to see her, Adam is weak and tired and his hands, feet nose and ears are completely numb.

"You still with me?" Jordan says, looking down at Adam, and Adam nods. Every second feels interminable; the snow has obscured landmarks and the darkness is settling in around them. Adam doesn't know how Jordan knows the way. He thought he was too cold to shiver, but his body starts shaking almost uncontrollably. Jordan puts his arm around Adam and rubs his shoulder vigorously, but it isn't enough. Adam wants to apologize, but he hasn't eaten in two days and he doesn't remember what it feels like not to be freezing to death.

Adam thinks he did doze off by the time they pull up to the house. Jordan lifts him up in his arms and is shouting something, and the next thing he knows he's being sat down by the stove. At first he can't even feel the heat. Jordan takes Adam's shoes and gloves off and rubs his hands gently, and as the feeling begins to return it burns, hot and painful, and Adam grits his teeth and watches the way they redden, like they're on fire inside. He doesn't think he'll ever be warm again, but Mo brings him a bowl of soup, and after he's taken a few sips Jordan lifts him up and takes him upstairs to the bedroom. There's a hot brick in the bed already, and Jordan strips Adam's cold, wet clothes off for him. Adam is too delirious from his ordeal to be self-conscious, and Jordan is very business-like, pulling a nightshirt over his head quickly. Then he gets Adam under the blankets and climbs in behind him, and Adam's eyes close with the feeling of Jordan's heat wrapped all around him, and finally he begins to warm up.

 

* * *

 

Adam wakes up the next morning with Jordan still spooned behind him, his arm draped loosely around Adam's waist. Adam tries to keep his breathing steady. He can feel the way Jordan's chest expands to press lightly against Adam's back, the soft push of Jordan's breath against Adam's neck. Adam's eyes almost water with how much he wants this every morning, and not just because he almost froze to death.

He can feel the moment when Jordan wakes. His arm flexes a little bit, and Adam's heart is beating fast, though he tries not to move, doesn't want Jordan to know he's awake. Jordan shifts his head slightly, almost imperceptibly, but then Adam realizes that he isn't moving to get away, he's moving to get his head even closer, like he wants to push his face into the back of Adam's neck, and in that instant, Adam is sure, he's  _certain_ , and it's like the most triumphant victory and the most devastating loss all at once, to know that he has Jordan, he  _has_  him, but that he's given himself over completely, too, to the wanting of Jordan. The feeling lasts for one glorious instant of certainty, and Adam feels himself flush all over; before he can stop himself he shivers.

Instantly Jordan stiffens, then removes his arm and rolls slightly away.

"You warm enough?" he rumbles, his voice scratchy.

Adam is still reeling from Jordan's sudden withdrawal, barely able to mourn the loss of his newfound knowledge before it is gone completely from his memory, because he is certain no longer. He panics, trying to get it back, to draw that feeling back to him, is so preoccupied with this that he forgets to find the words to answer Jordan's question, too.

The silence draws out—for one second? five? a hundred?—and then Jordan is moving even farther away, up out of bed and across the room, misinterpreting Adam's reluctance to speak.

He pulls on his trousers and a thick wool shirt, and Adam shuts his eyes, bringing his arms up to shield his face from Jordan's view.

"I'll have someone bring you up some food," Jordan says distantly, and then he's gone.

"Come back," Adam whispers, but the only answer comes from the lonely wail of the winds on the waters.

 

* * *

 

From then on Jordan is careful to get into bed long after Adam does, in the hope that Adam is asleep, and to be out of bed before Adam wakes. Adam is hardly ever asleep when either of these events occur, but he lets Jordan think he is.

Four days later, the baby, Isla, begins to sicken. She was never strong and had put on almost no weight, her cries always weak and watery, never developing into the lusty wails of a healthy infant. Jo does almost nothing but rock her, and try to feed her, but she has begun to refuse the goat's milk and everything else they try to dribble into her tiny mouth.

Frantic with worry that her child would die an unbaptized bastard, Jo cries and begs Trent to go for the minister. He staunchly refuses for two days, and everyone in the house takes a different position on letting it be known that Jo is living with them, and has a baby, no less. But when, on the third day, the baby stops crying completely and just lies, still and white, in the makeshift basket they use as a cradle, he nods and says he will go.

Rev. Neville is almost purple with moral outrage by the time he arrives with Trent, spitting and gesticulating about hellfire and the wages of sin. As he walks by Adam in the hall, he stops, glaring at him.

"You," he shouts, drops of spit hitting Adam in the face. Though he is short enough to have to look up at Adam, he is still fearsome. "Allowing this to happen under your nose. I expected better of you. And to think you're s'posed to be teachin' the impressionable young minds of our community the difference 'twixt right and wrong."

Nevertheless, he performs three quick ceremonies, first to marry Trent and Jo, next to baptize the baby, and then last rites. He does all three with an air of disgust, and reserves his most vitriolic ranting for Jordan and Adam, who are the only two to witness it. Jo cries during all of it, and after Trent leaves to take Rev. Neville back to town, she lays the baby down on her bed and curls up around it, clutching it close to her body.

It's dead by morning, and Trent and Jordan have to go out and dig a hole in the icy ground deep enough to bury it. Adam catches Mo crying in the kitchen, turned toward a corner, his face in his hands.

 

* * *

 

School resumes with the improvement in the weather, though suddenly there are far fewer children in attendance. Adam wonders if it has to do with Rev. Neville having given the islanders a report on the moral depravity of the schoolmaster. Jordan is still driving Adam to school, but Adam is silent now, too, unhappily aware of the fact that Jordan seems to be holding something in check—anger, maybe, or maybe something far more dangerous. His face is always forbidding, and he is tense enough that Adam does not want to risk riling him further.

Adam decides he can't stand the tense drives much longer, and when they arrive home one day, Adam informs Jordan that he no longer needs driven; he'll start walking again.

Jordan says nothing, doesn't acknowledge that he heard, doesn't even look at Adam. But the drives are indeed over, and Adam resumes walking to school and back every day.

A few weeks later, they all go to town for the monthly trip to the store for supplies and to check for post. Jo stays behind, since she has lain in bed every day since the death of her baby, listless and weepy.

When they return, they find her hysterical, and several giant rocks thrown through the parlour windows, shattered glass everywhere on the floor.

"Motherfucker," Dejan says, whistling.

"They've never gone this far before, right?" Gini asks, though he knows the answer. "Goddamn."

"Who did it?" Jordan demands, looking furious.

She's almost hyperventilating, her hands shaking as she wrings them nervously. "They yelled filthy things at me, called me names, oh, I was so scared, I thought they were going to—going t—"

" _Who_?" Jordan repeated, looking as if he wants to shake her.

"I—don't—know," she sobs, cowering away from Jordan.

"She's upset," Adam says, trying to draw Jordan's attention away from her.

Jordan swings around to glare at Adam. "I can see that," he says witheringly.

"Well, shouting at her is not going to solve anything," Adam says.

Jordan makes a wordless noise of frustration and goes to the window, looking out on the land. Adam takes his handkerchief out of his pocket and wordlessly hands it to Jo, who buries her face in it.

Jordan turns, suddenly. "Fine," he says. "I'm going to take Trent and Dejan and Gini into town and we'll find out who did this."

Gini, Dejan and Mo are cleaning up the glass and trying to figure out how to cover the window, and Trent is still stabling the horses. Studge is just sitting at the table, cracking walnuts and watching the proceedings impassively.

"Jordan, you don't even know it was people from town. They could've been bandits, roamers, anyone."

Jordan looks at Adam almost pityingly. "You think that, Adam, if you want."

Adam reins in his temper with difficulty. "Even if it is someone from town," he snaps, "—what are you going to do? Give them a beating? You don't think that will just bring them back, and maybe with more of their friends?"

"What are we supposed to do, just lie back and take it?" Studge says, grinning a little as if he's enjoying this. "Fuck no."

Studge's perspective and input on the situation seem to have the opposite effect on Jordan that he intended, because he sighs heavily and puts his hand up to his eyes. When he drops his hand he looks at Adam. "You're right. We've just gotta make sure someone's always here."

"You gonna let me pick up that shotgun again if I need to?" Studge says, still smirking.

"Only if and when I say," Jordan says grimly, and then he goes outside.

 

* * *

 

Clattenburg and Carragher decide to close the school.

"We can't have a schoolteacher who condones the kind of sinful behaviour that has transpired in this house," Carragher says. He and Clattenburg are sitting in chairs in the parlour in Tigh-na-Fiodha, Hazard hovering behind them as if he came along to be their bodyguard. "As Rev. Neville so rightly says, we don't want our children's minds desecrated with perversions. Such things might be acceptable in your fancy old world halls of learning, but we won't have you bringing Sodom and Gomorrah here."

Adam is angry at himself, because he's stunned, but he knows he shouldn't have been.

"Sodom and Gomorrah," he repeats incredulously.

Within seconds everything that has transpired in his past life, almost two centuries yet to come have ingloriously tumbled down on Adam like an avalanche.

"We don't want to know what all goes on here," Clattenburg says, almost nervously. "But we're going to ask that you keep it out of our school."

"What exactly are you implying?" Adam says, his back straight.

Clattenburg sighs, as if he's sorry it has come to this. "We've heard a lot of strange stories about Jordan Henderson from folks who knew him before he came here. We were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But he hasn’t proved anything wrong. We sent you out here to live with him thinkin' you would be a good influence, bring some civility and morality to this house. But he's sucked you in like has all the rest of his boys. It's thanks to you, actually, that we finally can be sure of the truth about him."

Adam is so furious he can barely see straight. He can feel himself trembling with anger, at their baseless accusations, at the unfairness of it, at the smug way they are handing down judgment, delivering their speeches as if they'd planned them all along, before Adam even came to Lineile.

"Get out," Adam says. "I have nothing more to say to you and no reason to defend myself or Jordan and his men in the face of such ridiculous accusations."

"Facts are facts," Carragher says, standing and putting on his hat. Clattenburg follows. "You'd best be careful, Adam. Folks haven't really taken kindly to you, and you haven't done yourself any favours on Lineile by taking sides."

Adam forces himself not to jump up and throttle Carragher with his bare hands. "Is that a threat?" he asks instead, raising an eyebrow.

"Just tell Jordan to think long and hard about what he's doin' here. And whether or not he might be better off somewhere else. Oh, and if he's thinking of selling, tell him I can make him a good offer," Carragher says, still smiling.

"You can see yourself out," Adam says coldly.

They shrug and walk out. Adam has never felt so powerless.

 

* * *

 

"Are you going to leave?" Mo says from the doorway a few moments later. Adam is still staring straight ahead, his jaw clenched and his mind working furiously, trying to figure out what to do. He looks over at Mo, whose eyes are sad and open, unprotected.

"I don't know," Adam says.

"You promised," Mo says, a bit desperately. "I knew this would happen, I knew they'd find a reason to make you leave, just because you're a good person."

"I don't want to leave," Adam says. And it’s not just because of the current situation, but because he would have no else to go. What’s left for him in this timeline’s London but a Lallana clan that’s actually not his, and another life steeped in lies? "There's nothing for me to do here, Mo. I would be a dead weight for Jordan."

"No," Mo says. "He leans on you more than you know."

Adam shakes his head. "Mo, he barely speaks to me. I contribute nothing but the paltry room and board I pay, and I don't think it's money that Jordan needs." He needs the hand of God, the balance of Justice, the power of Truth, all those lofty things that Adam, in his woeful mortal coil, could never provide.

“You’re right," Mo says. “Jordan speaks to no one, even in such difficult times. But you're the only one he’s not carrying on his shoulders.”

"I'm afraid that's not true; I am most definitely a burden."

"Just a while longer," Mo insists. "Wait a little bit. You'll see."

Adam looks down at his clenched hands. "I just want to help. That's all I ever wanted, when I woke up and find myself here. In Tigh-na-Fiodha."

"You have," Mo says, and Adam wishes he could believe him.

 

* * *

 

Jordan has almost no reaction to the news. His eyes flicker a little bit, but otherwise he just blinks at Adam. "You going, then?"

Mo and Dejan look up from where they are huddled together by the stove, sorting through a pail of lobsters.

"If it is an inconvenience for me to stay," Adam says, a trifle stiffly, thinking of the space he is taking up in Jordan's bed.

"You know it isn't," Jordan says stonily.

Adam curbs his temper. "No, Jordan, I don't know that, actually."

Gini and Studge stop their arguing over their dinners.

Jordan stares at Adam. "Well, what do you want me to say, Adam?"

Adam groans. "Say how you feel, for once in your  _life_."

He immediately regrets the words. Jordan looks like Adam has just slapped him.

Adam remembers the night Jordan showed him the painting, his most prized possession. He never knew so clearly what a person was thinking as he did that night.

"I'm sorry," Adam says. "Of course you don't owe that to anyone." Oh, he's making it worse, and he wants to bite his tongue out.

Jordan leaves the kitchen. They all hear a door slam a few seconds later, and the kitchen is silent for a long time afterward.

 

* * *

 

They stop going to the Abbey after that, and only go into town for supplies, speaking to no one. The shopkeeper is rude to them but accepts their money, of course, and some of the men in town shout insults at them as they ride through.

A few days later, a man arrives at the house. Adam is in the parlour writing letters. He knows no one from the real Adam Lallana’s life from this timeline—but from correspondence with his family in London, he knows that the real Adam has at least one former professor from Imperial that he keeps in contact with, and one lawyer in Mayfair. He writes to all of them, and fancies his handwriting to match the real Adam Lallana’s, now. Practice makes perfect.

He is the only one to hear the knock at the door.

"You must be the schoolteacher," the man says, taking off his hat. He's a little older than Adam, his face kind, but he looks a little beaten down.

"Not anymore," Adam says dryly. "How can I help you?"

The man regards him curiously, then clears his throat. "I'm looking for Jordan, he around?"

Adam ushers him into the parlour, thinking of having him sit down while he goes to find Jordan, but the man eyes the chairs with an air of embarrassment, as if he thinks they are too fine for him to sit in. Adam is about to reassure him when Mo comes running in.

"Stevie!" he says happily, and rushes at the man to grasp his hand and clap an arm around his shoulder. "I thought I heard your voice! I'm so happy you're here, Jordan is gonna shit himself."

Stevie laughs and glances at Adam almost apologetically.

"Why're you here, old man?" Mo asks, and he's grinning up at Gerrard adoringly.

Stevie pats Mo's back paternally. "Ran into Milly," he says. "Milly's wife is expecting. He's real happy, but it means he probably ain't gonna be able to come back this year. Sent me instead."

Mo beams at him. "Glad to have you. You met Adam, I guess?"

"Milly said the schoolmaster was boarding with you all."

"Adam Lallana, meet Stevie. Well, his name is Steven Gerrard, but we all call him Stevie.”

"Nice to meet you," Adam says, shaking Gerrard's hand.

"Likewise," Gerrard says.

They go into the kitchen, and Mo gravely fills Gerrard in on things that have transpired since Milly left.

"I think it's going to get worse. I just got a feeling," Mo says. Then he gets up. "I'm going to go down to the cellar and see if there's anything special to celebrate you coming back to us," he says, and smiles, leaving the room.

"He looks sicker than he did last time I saw him," Gerrard says bluntly.

Adam shakes his head. "He works too hard and worries too much. Refuses bed rest outright."

"I think he's afraid of being thought of as useless," Gerrard says.

"Jordan thinks it's good for him to be up and about. It keeps him strong, and he's more cheerful when he's up than the days when he's confined to his bed."

"He's afraid of going to a real doctor," Gerrard says. "Jordan wanted to take him, was thinking about takin' him and Dejan to Edinburgh, or maybe farther, to find someone who could help him. Mo didn't want to. I think it's frustrating to Jordan, 'cause he's a man of action, and when he can't fix things he gets real angry with himself."

"I thought, when I first got here, that Mo was right to tell Jordan not to think about leaving. But now I'm not so sure." Adam had thought that Jordan and all his men were bound together because of the croft, the sea, their place. Coming, as Adam did, from a family that was not really a family, a future life that was not a life, and the uncivilized civility of the city, he had thought, romantically, that there was something real about this island that tied them all together in some tangible, identifiable way, something comforting and safe that could offer much more to all of them than anything else in the world, and could help Mo more than any expensive doctors and sanatoriums. But he knows now that it is not Lineile or Fiodha; it is Jordan and the way he cares for them, the way he deserves their unswerving loyalty, their hard work for him, and their faith in him, and his willingness to do everything in his power to help them and keep them safe.

"I know Clattenburg and Mourinho. They's got things skewed in their heads. Carragher is more subtle but that makes him more dangerous. Carragher's got his heart in the right place despite all his blusterin' and yellin', but they pay him and he can't really do nothing to influence the people of Lineile in any way that goes against what the other three want. If things are getting worse I think it might be the best thing for Jordan to sell this croft and his boats. Make a new start somewhere else."

Mo comes back, then, and he's followed by Dejan and Gini, who whoop with delight at the sight of Gerrard. Adam retires to finish his letters, leaving them to their joyful reunion.

 

* * *

 

Jordan builds his fences as the snow melts. Jo teaches Adam, Mo, Dejan and Gini how to sew more than buttonholes, and they mend the shirts and trousers that have been torn and frayed. Soon it is time for the ploughing to begin as the ground softens and dries up, while the seas are calmer and fishing season would commence. The men spend all day in the oceans and in the fields. It's exhausting work.

One day they come into the barn to find that the horses, their two cows, the goat, and the pigs are all sick, and all the fowl but one chicken are dead. Jordan sends Studge and Dejan out to continue the ploughing without the horses, but he and Gerrard stay to try to nurse the sick animals. Adam knows nothing about animals and cannot help, but he does what Jordan and Gerrard tell him to do, and when they start dying off he helps to dig holes to bury them in.

Once after coming back from the sea, Jordan drags Melwood ashore with silent fury, tying it up to the pier all while grinding his teeth. The barnyard animals are just a tiny part of his life, of the croft, of Fiodha – but they are still a source of income for him. This time he did not even propose going into town to try to punish whoever poisoned all his animals, but Adam could see that the impotence was infuriating him, and the horror of watching his favourite horse die before his eyes was excruciating.

"They won't get the better of us," is all he says when Dejan complains loudly about the backbreaking work of ploughing the fields by hand, although silently wishing that he’s back on Melwood and fishing instead of farming. Meanwhile, Studge keeps boasting he can shoot anyone right between the eyes from two hundred yards away.

"That's impossible," Gini says flatly.

"You wanna bet?" Studge says. "Just give me a chance to prove it!"

He's never had a chance to prove it, but Adam is afraid he may, soon, because Jordan's patience is wearing thin, and though his men are all polite and upstanding, for the most part, despite their colourful language, there is a hard ferocity in all of them, probably the result of difficult childhoods, that seems to have been incited. All are eager for retaliation, and Jordan is the only thing holding them in check.

They lose all but one of the horses and the lone chicken. It will be months before the horse traders come through, and without the plough horses they will not be able to farm as much land as before.

There’s still plenty of fish in the sea, if anyone on Lineile would still have them sourced from Fiodha.

Jo, who has been getting steadily stranger since the death of her baby, starts to say that she is going to leave on her own if Trent does not arrange for them to leave together. She starts at every sound and refuses to be left alone in a room, so Trent spends most of his time sitting with her. She gets thinner and thinner and less chatty; all she talks about is wanting to leave this place and the curse that must be on it. She runs away twice, but never very far, and Trent always brings her back, exhausted and whimpering, in his arms.

Finally he decides to leave, strike out on his own. He tells Jordan that he can't afford to buy the croft that Jordan was going to set aside for him on Iona, and thinks maybe they'll try their luck mainland. He says he can't stand sitting around doing nothing while the people of the island sabotage Jordan's croft. Jordan pays him his wages and donates his bogie, their one remaining horse, and some supplies, and they set out in early May.

"You think she'll make it?" Dejan asks skeptically as they all watch the bogie disappear down the road.

"Nah, she'll be dead before they get through Bute," Studge says, chewing on a blade of grass.

\--

Adam moves his things back into the bedroom that Jo and Trent vacated. Jordan had started sleeping on Melwood, on the piers, weeks ago. After Mo has a particularly bad spell Jordan orders him to move up to his bedroom instead of sharing the small room downstairs with Dejan and Gerrard. Mo is unhappy with this but he follows Jordan's orders. Several times Adam catches Dejan sneaking out of Mo's room in the morning.

"He sleeps easier with me there," Dejan explains, unembarrassed. "I just don't know if Jordan would like it."

"Your secret's safe," Adam promises, though he doubts there is anything that goes on in the house that Jordan is unaware of.

Things are still unbearably tense between Adam and Jordan. Long gone are the easy conversations they used to have. Adam begins to doubt they ever had them; maybe they were all a figment of his imagination, so remote do the memories seem. Jordan is a solid fortress. He blocks out anyone's attempts to draw him into conversation, though Adam suspects that Gerrard is sometimes successful, when they're alone. Sometimes he catches Jordan looking at him, the look in his eyes making Adam want to reach out to him with everything he's got, but Jordan's gaze always slides away slowly, which makes Adam doubt what he saw. Most of the time he is sure of nothing, when it comes to Jordan, but then sometimes he is sure of everything, can see how it could be, if Jordan would only let his guard down, and if only Adam had the courage to face him head on, to ask Jordan for everything he is sure Jordan wants to give him, and to accept it without thinking of anything else.

 

* * *

 

Fortunately, three weeks later, the horse traders come through, much earlier than expected, and Jordan buys four, trading much of their seawares and fishes and grain supply in addition to the money. The first opportunity they get, Jordan, Adam, Dejan, Gini and Studge take the cart into town for supplies. The planting is finished, their trawling is done and the men are exhausted. Jordan drives, Adam beside him in front, and the other three ride behind.

Studge disappears the moment they arrive in town, like he always does. The main street is mostly deserted. Adam checks for mail at the post office and takes a walk past his beautiful brand new school house, empty and locked up, no new teacher found yet. He also walks a little ways down the road leading out of town, all the way to the pier and boarding a ferry to the mainland. He thinks of taking Jordan by the hand and dragging him away to board a train for Edinburgh, and then sailing on a ship to a faraway land where none of the ugliness of Lineile could touch them.

When he gets back to the store, Studge is back, and they load up the cart and make for home around five o'clock, having spent no more than an hour and a half in town. When the house comes into view, Studge points at it and says, "Why's there smoke comin' out of that window?"

Before he's even done saying the words Jordan is already unhitching one of the horses. "Dejan, do the other," he barks, and then he's up on one of them, galloping toward Tigh-na-Fiodha. Dejan scrambles to follow, and Adam, Studge and Gini run as hard as they can after them.

It's the downstairs that's on fire, the two front rooms and the hallway. Gerrard is lying on the ground a few yards from the house, his foot a mangled and bloody mess, and Mo is a few feet away, wheezing and gasping.

"They shot my foot before I could scare 'em off," Gerrard says, grimacing through what must be horrific pain. "Mo was upstairs and they nailed his door shut, stole a bunch of stuff and set fire to the front before taking off in a bogie just a few minutes ago. I couldn't put out the fire all lame like this, had to crawl upstairs to get Mo out, he was coughing pretty bad, and now he can barely breathe at all."

"Gini, get the doctor," Jordan shouts as he runs into the burning house.

They put the fire out by running buckets of water in and beating it back with burlap sacks, but most of the front of the house, including Adam's room, is ruined, everything that wasn't touched by the fire in shambles. Broken glass litters the floor, furniture is splintered, and many things are missing. Adam's shoulders ache and he's inhaled lots of smoke; they are all sooty and sweating and coughing, but Jordan's face is like stone. Adam's eyes are watering, but he's not sure if it's from the smoke or from looking at Jordan's face.

The smoke has done Mo no good; when Adam comes back out front, Mo is awake, but wheezing more loudly and painfully than ever before, on his back in the dirt, his body arching up with the effort of expanding and contracting his chest. Jordan takes one look at Mo and turns to Gerrard.

"You recognize any of them?" he asks.

"No," he says, white-faced with pain. "They weren't no one I'd seen on Lineile before. I think they were outsiders, maybe. They talked like they'd been sent by someone. And they left in a bogie."

"The painting," Adam says involuntarily, and Jordan's eyes snap up to meet his.

"It doesn't matter," he says, and Adam wants to cry, for some reason.

"You sit tight," Jordan says to Gerrard grimly. "I'm going after these motherfuckers. Dejan, Studge, saddle the horses."

"How are you going to go after them? You have no idea where they went! They'll be miles away by now," Adam says, panicking a little at the idea of Jordan going off and leaving them alone.

"See this?" Jordan says, and he points to a pair of tracks leading out to the road. "Those are bogie tracks, but you can see the tread on this right rear wheel is different. Looks like they were holding an axle in place with some wire. Makes it easy to follow."

Adam stares at the tracks, barely able to discern the abnormality Jordan is talking about. "What are you going to do if you find them?" he asks slowly.

Jordan doesn't answer, but the hardness in his eyes fills Adam with dread, and he can only stare after Jordan as he barks orders at Studge and Dejan and mounts his horse. Dejan kneels beside Mo for a moment, clasping his hand and saying something inaudible.

"Dejan!" Jordan says harshly, and Dejan stands, dropping Mo's hand. Studge is sitting on his horse, chewing something and smiling as if he's finally come into some good luck. Dejan mounts his horse and then they're off. They've each got a shotgun strapped to their backs, and Adam feels his own jaw clench.

Adam turns to go kneel at Mo's side. Mo's eyes are watering and his chest sounds worse to Adam than it ever has. The desperation on Mo's face as he fights for every breath is so unadulterated that it's as if nothing of Mo exists anymore, his entire being submitted to his illness. Adam has never felt so close to death as he does now, looking down at Mo, and his own powerlessness in the face of it is terrifying.

He's furious at Jordan, suddenly, for leaving them like this, Gerrard white around the mouth from the pain and Mo nearly erased by his suffering. He doesn't know what to do, how to help either of them.

"Have him sit up," Gerrard says, "maybe get a hay bale so he can lean up against it."

Adam runs to fetch one. He props Mo up, but Mo is still agitated and frantic at his inability to get enough air.

"Mo," Adam pleads quietly. "Try to calm down, it might help. The doctor will be here soon." That's not true and Adam is sure Mo knows it, but Mo closes his eyes and nods anyway.

 

* * *

 

By the time Gini returns with Dr. Mignolet, Adam has cleaned up the kitchen, which is relatively undamaged, and set Mo up in a makeshift cot by the window, where he can breathe air untainted by smoke but is close enough to the stove to keep warm. His breathing is the only sound in the room, and Gerrard's face is grey with the dull throbbing in his foot; Adam had had to cut his boot off and though Gerrard had made no sound through the whole ordeal, he has made no sound since it was over, either, and just sits on the floor, back against the wall, waiting for help to come.

Dr. Mignolet arrives in the gig and examines Gerrard's foot, concluding that he needs to take Gerrard to a surgery, maybe as far as Argyll, if he doesn't want to lose it. Gerrard is dosed with laudanum and Adam and Gini hoist him up, looping his arms around their shoulders, and get him downstairs and into the doctor's gig, propping his foot up under a few kitchen rags.

"Am I gonna lose that foot?" Gerrard says, his eyes hazy and his head lolling on the seatback.

"No," Adam says, as firmly as he can. "You're to be taken to a hospital."

"Can't afford no hospital," Gerrard slurs. "Gotta get word to the missus—"

"We'll write to her. Don't worry. The bill will be taken care of. You'll be walking in no time at all."

"The Doc wouldn't look me in the eye. Jordan'll think—"

Adam leans over, resting his hand on the rail next to Gerrard's head. "Listen to me. Don't worry about Jordan or anything but getting better. You're in good hands."

Gerrard closes his eyes.

Dr. Mignolet descends the steps and pulls Adam away from the gig.

"I've spoken to Mo. He needs to be taken to a sanatorium; we all know that I can't give him the care he needs here."

Adam looks out at the oceans beyond the doctor's shoulder. Dawn is creeping out over the waters; spring had arrived, everything is tranquil and quiet. It seems strange to Adam that things have gone so spectacularly wrong.

"What did he say he wants?"

"He wants to stay, of course, but he said he would do whatever Jordan thought best."

"Well, Jordan isn't here," Adam says bitterly.

He's surprised when Dr. Mignolet puts a hand to his shoulder briefly. "I'm sorry for your troubles," he says.

Adam turns to stare at him for a moment, and Dr. Mignolet drops his hand, transferring his medical bag from the other hand.

"I can write to inquire about a place for him. In the meantime, all I can tell you to do for him is to make sure he rests and doesn't stop eating. He's very ill, Adam."

Adam nods. "Send me the bill for Stevie; I'll give you a draft on my bank," he says firmly, wary that it’s not really _his_ money he is using, but rather the _other_ Adam Lallana’s.

But something has to be done.

Dr. Mignolet shakes his hand and drives off, Gerrard in tow.

Gini watches the gig disappear down the road, and Adam turns back to the house.

 

* * *

 

At about three the next afternoon, Jordan and Dejan come back, Studge's horse tied to Jordan's saddle. Adam sees them through the kitchen window and throws down the rag he's scrubbing, lye soap making his hands burn a little. Mo opens his eyes and looks over at Adam, holding his gaze intensely for a moment before the door opens.

Dejan comes in looking dirty and exhausted, his knuckles bloody and his mouth bracketed like he wants to cry, if only he had the energy. He staggers over to Mo and kneels down at his cot, putting his head down on the blanket. "Mo," he says, his voice muffled, and Mo raises his hand slowly, like it weighs too much, and rests it heavily atop Dejan's head, his fingers weaving into Dejan's hair.

Adam has to look away, and Jordan is standing in the doorway looking like he was carved from marble, a rope folded up in one hand. He tosses it onto the table and takes his hat off, sitting down and leaning back, looking at Adam.

Adam doesn't say anything, just stares at him.

"It was Studge that told 'em we were in town," Jordan says finally.

There is nothing in Jordan's face that evinces any hint of the sense of betrayal he must feel. Adam himself is shocked; even accounting for all of Studge's faults, Adam hadn't thought him capable of this.

"Where," he says, his mouth suddenly dry, "—where is he now?"

Dejan raises his head. "We tracked 'em all the way to the coast of Mull, they got on a boat heading for Oban but we caught up with them. They saw us and started to run, but Studge got right up beside 'em and shot the driver right between the eyes. The other lad with him started yelling, asking what the hell Studge thought he was doing. It was obvious they weren’t expecting him to turn on 'em. That little shit has no one's side but his own, and he was having a real good time, whooping and yelling like he'd been waiting all his life to kill someone. Well then two other lads jump out of the back of the bogie and they’ve got rifles, the horses was trying to bolt because they were spooked as hell and Studge shoots one of them, too."

"We killed them all," Jordan says tonelessly. “Threw their bodies into the sea, tied to rocks so that no one will ever find them. They’ll become fish fodder.”

"Studge?" Adam raps out.

"No," Jordan says. "I got him off my boat and told him never to show his face here again.”

Mo's breathing gets louder, suddenly, and Adam looks over to see the distress on his face, the way his chest is heaving.

"Can I speak to you outside?" Adam says to Jordan, trying to hold onto his temper.

Jordan regards him for a moment, then pushes up out of his seat and puts his hat back on. Adam follows him out the door and into the yard.

"What were you thinking?" Adam says, not knowing a better way to start, but so angry that his voice is shaking. Jordan doesn't turn around, just keeps walking deliberately in the direction of the pier.

"Studge is gone. Gerrard is gone. Trent is gone. And you've just killed how many men?"

"Had to make a decision," Jordan says, pulling down a few tools and rolling them up in a sack.

"What kind of decision was that? Now is not the time to be leaving on missions of revenge. You went into that blind, Jordan, you had no idea about Studge. That lad is crazy with bloodlust! He's been itching to do something like that for months now and you led him right into it. And then you just  _leave_  him there?"

Jordan doesn't answer, just finishes rolling up the sack and reaches for a rope.

"He's got you deep in it now, and you couldn't hold on to your temper for just a little longer—"

Suddenly Jordan turns around. "How much longer was I supposed to just take it?" he says harshly. "I made a decision. I knew what was likely to happen. It's my fault, yeah, I knew what he'd do if I took him to hunt those lowlifes down, but you know what? I wanted to kill them. I wanted to eat their goddamn hearts right out of their chests."

"They're not even the ones who are really responsible for all this!" Adam shouts. "You know that! It's Clattenburg and Carragher who are after you, turning the whole island against you and trying to drive you out. These men were probably paid to do this, and Studge too, maybe he was under orders to kill them anyway so none of it could be traced back to those two. But it looks like you're as hell-bent on bringing yourself down as they are. God knows we're miles from any civilized people but you know they can call the law up at their own whim, and now you've committed murder and played right into their hands."

"Dammit, Adam, what was I  _supposed_  to do?"

Jordan's eyes are snapping with anger and he's holding a scythe. Adam's mind is in such turmoil that he has crazy, unbidden thoughts, sees Jordan as some violent Saxon god bent on vengeance, the world bending before his wrath.

"Do you even know how sick Mo is? He might only have weeks—"

"You don't think I  _know_  that?" Jordan roars.

The sudden gust of wind against his cheeks feels like a slap on his face, and Adam feels very alone. There is only the sound of the waves crashing against the rocky shores, now. Violent and unrelenting. The seagulls laughing at him with every hoot.

"Mo and Dejan are all I've got and I can't do a thing to help them," Jordan continues. "And these motherfuckers come to me, to my land, to  _my_ home, and try to have Mo killed and Stevie lamed. They try to burn my house down, and you expect me to not do a thing about it?"

"Was this the right thing, Jordan? Is this going to stop them? And now you don't have Studge under your eye. You don't know  _what_  he'll do, half your men are gone and I'm virtually useless—"

"Yeah," Jordan says, that single word dropping heavily between them. "Another person I have to worry about, another person I can't keep safe. Every time you take one of your little walks into town I have to worry that they're going to beat you like they did that last schoolmaster. Every time you're left alone here now I have to worry that they're going to come and do something to you, too, and then I'll have a dead school teacher on my hands on top of everything else."

It's the truth, but it still hurts Adam deeply that Jordan views him as such a burden now.

Jordan turns away from Adam. "You should never have come here, Adam."

The hurt gouges everything out of Adam, eats everything away so that he feels like he's empty, hollow.

He wants to tell Jordan that he hasn’t even thought of coming here, and spectacularly destroying everyone’s lives on Fiodha. He wants to tell Jordan that he’s not even supposed to be here, living in this time, in _this_ Adam Lallana’s body which looks so much like him and yet is not him.

But then, it was him who had driven all the way from Liverpool, to Bournemouth, to Oban – that night in July, before crashing into Tigh-na-Fiodha and into Jordan’s bed. It was all Adam.

"Yes," he says finally, watching Jordan's back. "You're right."

He leaves Jordan on the pier. As he rounds the corner to make his way back to Tigh-na-Fiodha he encounters Gini, who is looking uneasy.

"I’ve never heard Hendo lose his temper like that before," he says.

Adam shakes his head and keeps walking.

"Are you leaving?" Gini calls after him.

Adam turns back to look at him, the way he's holding his cap in his two hands, fingers moving restlessly over the brim of it. Gini's shirt is torn and looks too thin, blowing in the wind a little.

"I don't know," Adam says.

He goes back to the house. Mo is watching him, his eyes already looking close to dead, and Dejan still has his forehead resting on the cot next to him.

Adam remembers the conversation he had with Mo, and the promise he made to stay. No matter how much Jordan resents his presence here, he knows he can't leave Mo and Dejan and Jordan alone. For all Jordan's stoicism and physical strength, they're defenseless. Adam doesn't know how anything he could do will help them, but there is something in the way Jordan is holding onto this, something in the way he seems unable to stop fighting even at the risk of losing it all, that makes Adam think there is still some secret to be unlocked about Jordan that will be the key to saving him.

The next morning Jordan sends Gini away with some money, a letter of reference and a few tins of salmon and beans. As he turns to leave Gini has that look on his face of a boy trying not to cry, but relieved that he isn't allowed to. "Maybe I'll find Trent 'n' Jo," he says.

"You do that. Make sure Jo's still alive and Trent’s not drunk off his arse and face-down in a ditch somewhere," Jordan says.

"Fuck you," Dejan says to Gini. "Running away like a goddamned coward."

"Dejan," Jordan says.

"Goodbye, Mo," Gini says, and Mo smiles a little through his wheezing breaths.

Gini nods at Adam and leaves, the sound of his footsteps fading. Adam turns back to the stove, where he's trying to cook trout.

"He was an orphan and a shrimp. I caught him stealing in the cellar one day," Jordan says. "He sure was scrawny."

"Still is," Dejan muttered bitterly. "You'll never see him again. None of us won't see no one again."

"You're free to leave, Dejan." Jordan says impassively.

"For fuck's sake, Jordan," Dejan groans, "what is your plan here?"

"I'm going to work my croft," Jordan says. "And we're going to help Mo get better."

"Oh, that's your great strategy? Help Mo get better. Fucking fantastic. How, exactly? And how you going to work that land with no hired men, or go fishing with no fishermen?"

"With my own two hands. And yours, if you don't leave."

"Jesus Christ," Dejan says, his thin face and black eyes contorted with frustration and rage.

"I'll help," Adam says.

Jordan doesn't even look over at him. "Going to ruin those soft white hands of yours?"

Adam looks down at his hands. They're rough by now, calloused and scarred.

"You worry about my hands if you want, Jordan," Adam says coldly. "Just another on your long list of worries."

Dejan looks up and flicks his eyes back and forth between them, but the conversation stops there, and Adam goes out with Jordan and Dejan to sea that day.

 

* * *

 

They have to give up on three-quarters of the croft and one-third of their boats because they don't have enough men to work them. Adam knows it kills Jordan to see them all go to waste, but it's better that they work closer to the house, anyway, because they can't be too far from Mo. They take turns staying with him when he is feeling particularly bad, but that falls mostly to Adam, who has also taken on most of the housework. They've closed off the damaged parts of the house, however, and have no time to repair them. They cannot go into town anymore; Jordan goes on his own nearly thirty miles each way to the neighbouring islands— either Iona or Mull— to get them supplies, a trip that takes at least two days. Dejan teaches Adam how to use a rifle effectively and makes him practice reloading it.

Adam and Jordan barely speak. Jordan is harsh with his directions and critical of Adam's work, but is working so hard himself that Adam cannot resent him for it. It's brutal and exhausting, and every night Adam's bones ache and he never gets enough sleep; his head barely hits the pillow before Jordan is calling them up again before dawn. By now Adam is no longer seasick on Melwood, although the first few trips out fishing had been torture on his innards. By now Adam knows his aft and his fore, port and starboard, a thousand different knots for different occasions.

Jordan is a workhorse and never seems to tire. Adam never sees him sleep or rest except to take his meals. Dejan develops dark circles under his eyes and loses much of his spirit, never venturing crude jokes or indulging in long monologues about outlandish plans and ideas to make them all rich. He works doggedly and sleeps on a bedroll on the floor next to Mo's cot. Adam and Jordan share the room off the kitchen formerly occupied by the other men. Sometimes he has just enough time before he falls asleep to remember the last time the two of them were sharing a room. That time feels so far away now, and Adam sometimes wonders whether he imagined all of it.

Mo doesn't get better but he doesn't seem to get any worse, either. He is very frail, too weak even to hold a spoon for very long, his face drained of all colour most days and unnaturally flushed on others. Adam has to wash out bloody rags frequently, and Mo barely has any appetite.

Jordan has forbidden any of them from going up the stairs because of the fire damage, but one day when Jordan is out Adam decides to brave it anyway to see if any of his books remain. There is soot everywhere but the damage doesn't seem as bad as they had feared, and the floor is stable, at least. There is debris scattered all over, though, and it takes Adam a few moments to realize that much of it is the remains of his books, the covers torn off, the pages ripped up and charred. He bends down to pick up a few scattered pages, blackened and crinkled, mostly unreadable. After shuffling through them, he picks up a relatively undamaged pamphlet and recognizes it immediately. There are a few others that are almost wholly intact underneath the other rubble, and Adam collects them to bring downstairs to Mo.

When Jordan returns, he eyes the charred paper scattered around the kitchen table and glares at Adam.

"You been upstairs?"

"Yes," Adam says.

"Damn it, Adam, I can't watch you every second," Jordan says scathingly, and he sweeps the pages off the table. They scatter, the charred bits flaking off and creating a small black cloud of dust.

Mo starts wheezing harder almost immediately, and Dejan stands up abruptly from his chair, knocking it over backwards.

"What on earth is wrong with you?" Adam says to Jordan, hurrying forward to help Mo sit up and bend forward.

Jordan turns and storms out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind him and making the house rattle with it.

Mo begins a violent coughing fit, and Adam hopes it will be a short one; sometimes they start and don't stop until Mo is blue in the face and they all think each gasping breath will be his last. There is only a little bit of blood this time. As Adam helps Mo wipe his mouth he can feel how badly Mo is shaking.

"He's scared," Mo croaks, looking up at Adam like he's pleading with him. "Don't leave." He grips Adam's sleeve with surprising strength.

Dejan picks up his chair and sits down in it, but he drops his head into his hands.

Adam clenches his jaw and turns to pick up the scattered papers. He flips through one and stops, recognizing it immediately. "How appropriate," he mutters.

"Read it out loud," Mo whispers, leaning back and folding his hands over his stomach.

Adam looks up at him and then back down at the paper, trying to find his voice. "'All mankind is of one author and is one volume,'" he reads. "'When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.'"†

"Fuck, shut up," Dejan says, and gets up quickly, making his way to the door and stumbling outside.

"You believe that?" Mo says.

"What?" Adam says, turning away, mostly to hide his face from Mo, who is  _dying_ , and not one of them can do a thing about it.

"What you read."

Adam stares down at the words sightlessly. "I think it was written by a man who wanted to know and to be known. We're all alone if we don't have that."

"And heaven is all of us laying open to one another, just like that."

"We can have that here, too, if we let ourselves," Adam says.

"We don't, though, do we? We have to wait for God to do it for us."

Adam looks out the window at the sun setting. The seas look red, bloodthirsty. "It's not easy, feeling helpless. You'd think it would be, since feeling helpless means doing nothing." He works his jaw. "And even worse is knowing that you can help but you aren't being allowed to."

"Jordan doesn't lay himself open to no one," Mo says.

Adam doesn't know how to answer that, so he says nothing.

 

* * *

 

The work gets easier as Adam gets stronger, but he knows that he could be the strongest man in the world and never get through the impenetrable fortress Jordan has built around himself. Jordan never smiles or laughs and hardly even speaks. Watching the glacial pace of Mo's battle with death takes its toll on all of them, but they never speak of it in front of Mo, a circumstance that does not prevent Mo from evincing terrible and unjustified remorse about his condition that makes everything a thousand times more devastating. Their nerves are all in shreds; they've found dead animals on the porch, heard gunshots in the night and even had to put out another small fire on the pier, destroying a few of their boats. They all know that it was started deliberately and maliciously.

Every time Adam even broaches the subject of changing anything, Jordan shuts Adam down quickly by telling him he's free to leave if he wishes. Dejan doesn't say much of anything and it is perhaps his quietness more than anything else that makes Adam so uneasy about the path they're all on, committed to some bleak ending and unable to see a way out.

Adam contemplates leaving by himself a thousand times. He's sick of the taste of fish and cuttlefish and crabs. He has involuntary, mouthwatering dreams about returning to London society, despite never having been there in this lifetime, and slightly worries if they will realize that he’s not the Adam Lallana that they know. He imagines what his mother's insipid but undeniably delicious dinner parties would be like in this timeline, if it would be any different to the wild parties of rich businessmen and charity balls of football superstars in the modern era.

He loves football. He loves sports. He loves being outdoors in the open, and he would have loved his job if not for everything else that comes with it. He hates what it has turned him into, what it’s made of him.

But what has Lineile made of him now?

Adam couldn’t stop himself from imagining what it's like to cut into a succulent piece of veal, the feel of pastry melting in his mouth, the cool slide of ice cream down his throat. Mingling in parties with champagnes and wine and upcoming pop-starlets that intersperse within endless parties after each training session, each big game on the pitch under glaring bright lights and noisy chants of the fans. Even the trite conversation of his parents’ friends and the pompous, tired, cynical wit of his own friends and colleagues begin to seem preferable through the generous tint of his memory, when every day he faces the depressing, tense silence of mealtime with three other men broken in their various ways. Something is holding him there, however; perhaps, Adam thinks, it is only all the things unspoken, vague possibilities and mirages of what could have been had everything not gone so spectacularly wrong. But that had all been set in motion long before Adam arrived on this island, in this very moment in time, long before he was supposed to be born. Adam can't shake the feeling that there was a reason he had been sent here, even if that reason was only rescuing Jordan and Mo and Dejan from the claustrophobic clutches of this island and the oceans that surrounds it, deceptive in its open vastness.

The weather gets hotter and hotter, despite the oceanic breeze; Adam's skin turns golden brown from working under the sun, salty from sweat and seawater. He tears the sleeves off of several shirts to make them cooler, but sheds them altogether when he sees Jordan and Dejan doing the same. Sometimes he catches Jordan watching him, and the ferocity in his face makes Adam tremble. But when Adam straightens and wipes the sweat from his forehead, staring back at Jordan and breathing hard, Jordan just turns back to his work, his jaw clenched and body taut.

And still Mo hangs on as if he's waiting for something. The sound of his coughing becomes a comfort rather than something to dread, simply because it means he is still fighting death in terms they can all understand; it's when Mo's eyes begin to look vacant and he stares unseeingly at the wall, still and quiet, that they panic. This happens more often after Dr. Mignolet makes another visit in mid-June to check on Mo and leave another small glass vial of laudanum. He also decides to bleed him, and Mo lies in his cot like one dead for days afterward, barely moving, the pale grey of his face beginning to look waxy.

Adam braves going into town for his post in July. There's a letter dated in April from the family lawyer informing him that the transition of his father's assets that was to happen on his thirtieth birthday has been successfully completed, and hinting strongly that it would be wise of Adam to return to London to oversee the business now that he has full control of it. Even when Adam has the slightest clue of how to run a business in the nineteenth century, and what this would entail.

The lawyer has also, as Adam requested, enclosed a list of several of the sanatoriums recommended by the family physician, one in Edinburgh, one in London, and one in Switzerland. "Passage overseas could be arranged at short notice," he writes. "I have already requested a place on the waiting lists of all three. If it is not too late and you wish to proceed, let me know as soon as you are able."

Adam folds the letter up quickly, putting it in his pocket, but when he turns around to start walking home he is confronted with Carragher's smiling face.

"It's been a while, Adam. Didn't know you were still hanging around."

"Didn't you?" Adam says. "Someone seems very concerned with keeping abreast of the happenings in Jordan's home."

"That right? Well, now. Perhaps they're just being Christian and neighbourly."

"That must be it," Adam says dryly. "If you'll excuse me." He brushes past Carragher, but is stopped by his voice.

"You talk to them lads," Carragher says. "My offer's only going to get lower. Way I hear it, if the crop and the fishes don't come in this year, Henderson's finished, and I'll have the bank in here and getting that croft out from under him so fast he won't know what hit him. I suggest you let him know there’s nothing he can do about it."

Jordan had told no one about the financial pressure he was under, though Adam should have guessed. No wonder they weren't trying to repair the house. The truth was that Adam was not accustomed to thinking about money very much at all and, when he did, had equated the Spartan lifestyle of late with preventative measures rather than those made of necessity.

Adam goes back to the post office and writes a reply to his lawyer. He makes it home quickly enough that Jordan doesn't realize that he's been gone. And of course he tells Jordan nothing about Carragher's threats.

He does, however, take the next opportunity that offers itself of speaking to Dejan when Jordan is out of earshot about Jordan's financial situation.

"What d'you wanna know?" Dejan says. They haven't had rain in a long time, which is nearly unheard of for an island such as Lineile, and everything is dryer than it should be, even the pools and the tiny river streams. They're both exhausted and miserable.

"Is he...in dire financial straits?"

Dejan wipes at his forehead and rests his hands on his hips. "Fuck, I don't know. This place weren't managed well before he came on and I heard tell that the old man left a lot of IOUs behind when he died. I think we was just starting to do alright when he had the house built back when he thought he was getting hitched. But in the last few years Carragher and Clattenburg have made it near impossible for Jordan to sell his produce. He has to pay extra to get them to distributors who want to sell cheap. He's also supporting most all of our families. But he must be having trouble if he's letting people go like this. No one wants to leave Jordan, he takes care of his own."

"You two going to stand there gossiping like a couple of girls?" Jordan calls from across the field.

Dejan sighs and goes back to work.

The heat only gets worse, and the air has a strange dryness. They get many thunderstorms but hardly any rain, not nearly enough to keep the crop as healthy as it should be, and everything begins to dry up far too early, stunted and desiccated. Everything is dusty and brown, and the only steady produce comes from the sea, if any. Jordan has them dig giant trenches around the croft to clear a circumference around them so that if lightning should strike and a fire starts it won't spread too far. It's brutal work and Adam feels like he's broken at the end of every day.

Adam comes across Jordan and Dejan helping each other shave their hair off; he asks them to do the same for him so his head won't get so uncomfortably hot when he wears his hat. Dejan says he's going to go ask Mo if he wants his hair shorn, and he leaves Jordan holding the blade in his hands.

"Come here," Jordan says roughly, gesturing at the stool. Adam does, unbuttoning his shirt to pull his collar away from his neck.

Jordan takes up the scissors first. He runs one hand through Adam's hair carefully, and Adam has to stop himself from closing his eyes. Jordan cuts his hair short, his fingertips pressing gently against Adam's neck and scalp to hold his head steady, and sometimes Adam imagines that they linger a little bit on his skin, but of course he can't be sure. Jordan is so careful with the blade when he begins the shave, and Adam's senses are suddenly all heightened, which always seems to be the effect when Jordan gets close. He can hear the hum of insects, the flapping movement of seagulls’ wings, the sea waves, the scrape of the blade on his own head, even the soft push of Jordan's breath. His hands are so steady, but Adam feels like he's going to melt into the ground. All too soon Jordan is done. He wipes at Adam's head with a rag, and then his hand rests for just a moment at the place where Adam's shoulder and neck meet. Then he takes it away, and Adam can tell even in the way he turns to take the supplies back into the house that this rare reprieve from his usual terse, taciturn behaviour of late is over.

 

* * *

 

A traveling daguerreotypist named Klopp comes to Lineile a few days later. He pulls up in front of Tigh-na-Fiodha with his heavy equipment in a small gig and asks if they want their daguerreotype taken for ten pounds and room and board for the night.

"Ten pounds is a lot of money," Jordan says.

Adam realizes, now, that this is what it was. The daguerreotypes in Jordan’s bedroom, which Adam will find, 170 years from now.

"I'll pay it," Adam says.

Jordan glares at him.

"Best ten pounds you'll ever spend," Mr. Klopp says. "This daguerreotype will last your whole life."

"Let's do it!" Dejan says, slapping Adam on the back and coming forward to help the daguerreotypist unload his equipment. They spend a long time setting up, and Adam tells Jordan to shave and gets Mo dressed.

They bring two stools out in front of the house. Mo and Dejan are to sit on them, and Jordan and Adam stand behind them. They have to stand still for a long time for the exposure; it is fortunate that the sun is so bright and that their sweatiness won't be visible once the daguerreotype is developed.

Mo is tired from this small exertion and Jordan is silent and stony, but Dejan and Adam enjoy Mr. Klopp's stories and conversation and he leaves them the next morning with a clear daguerreotype. Mo looks almost healthy in the picture, since the pallid greyness of his face does not distinguish him from the complexions of the three others. Jordan is giant and forbidding, the brim of his hat shadowing his eyes, and Dejan looks mischievous.

Adam is glad they captured this moment in time. Despite all the things that have happened, he has a feeling this is a time in his life he will always want to remember.

After all, wasn’t this what he has remembered seeing on that night in July? And now, he will remember the events that had led up to this moment.

Every little detail.

 

* * *

 

The next time Adam is able to sneak away to check his mail he is not accosted at all; the whole town has been brought to a halt by the eerie stillness of the drought. The streets are nearly empty.

The letter he'd been waiting for has arrived, and he takes a brief moment to pen yet another reply before starting home again.

When he gets back to the house Jordan is sitting on the back porch cleaning his rifle. He looks up at Adam and the piercing coldness of his stare fills Adam with dread. Nothing about his sojourn has been easy, but Jordan has been so inscrutable and remote of late that Adam is almost afraid of him. He waffles between being afraid of him and being angry with him.

"You told me you were coming back to rest," Jordan said, looking up at Adam darkly. "And I find out from Mo that you jaunted off to town."

"I didn't  _jaunt_. I had to check my mail," Adam says shortly, moving quickly toward the door.

Jordan is too quick for him, however; he stands in one smooth movement, blocking Adam's way, looming over him.

"Jordan. I want to go inside. I have something I need to discuss with Mo."

"If you're going to stay here, Adam, I need to know where you are all the time."

Adam purses his mouth, trying to keep a hold on his temper. "You may not be interested in doing anything to change this situation, Jordan, but I am, and I'm damn well going to do it whether I have your permission or not."

Adam can see Jordan pale with anger under his dark tan.

"I working my fucking arse off, Adam," Jordan hisses. "This is all I know how to do. I have nothing in the world but this croft and my boats, but I'm doing the only thing I can, and you have the nerve to tell me I'm not interested in doing anything to change this situation?"

Adam flinches a little bit, angry with himself, now, for letting his temper get away with him. "This is why I was sent here, Jordan, it must be,” he says, although he’s no longer sure who he’s trying to convince— Jordan, or himself. “It’s so that I can help you,” he continues. “I've got the money. Let me send Mo to a sanatorium where he can get the help he needs. Then I can loan you the money to hire the men you need to keep the croft productive and the bank at bay and you can turn things around here. I'll make sure you can visit Mo when you want to, and I'll go back to London and be out of your life."

Jordan stares at him incredulously for a moment, then gives an abbreviated laugh of derision. "You think you can just buy me off like that? Take away everything that's ever meant anything to me, throw money at everything and expect it all to come out right? Mo's gonna die in that place, that fancified death factory parading as a holiday spot. They can't do a thing for him, don't think I don't know that."

Adam wants to shake him. "So obviously you are content to stand by and do nothing! Is that it?" he cries. "I'm trying to help you, it's the only thing I can think of to do, and meanwhile you're sitting here on your croft that's becoming more worthless by the day and turning into something that I don't even recognize. You're holding on to  _something_  in that head of yours but it isn't what's best for you or Dejan or Mo, it's just some stubborn righteousness. You're fighting people who will obviously stoop to the lowest, most despicable ends to achieve their goals, and for what? Just to maintain some illusion of control? Look what they've done to you, they've turned you into a murderer, you think that puts you in control of anything? You're not a murderer, Jordan, I  _know_  this, and yet you've killed how many men—"

" _I_  live with that," Jordan shouts. "You don't have to."

"But I do, Jordan," Adam says coldly. "We all do."

Jordan scoffs. "You were raised in a different world, with your money and your rich house, everything soft and easy, and you don't like what you see when you have to come down here and see what's happening on the ground, where people have to do awful things to scheme and grasp and hold onto what they need in life."

"Yeah? And what is that? Do you really think it's best for Mo to waste away here and for you to sleep with your rifle and work all of us to death for a  _principle_?"

Jordan stares at Adam for a moment and Adam thinks maybe he can see hurt in his eyes. It cuts him to the quick, but before he can say anything Jordan turns abruptly and goes into the kitchen, where Dejan is trying to repair his boot with a hammer and some tacks and Mo is watching him listlessly. Adam follows, leaving the door open, because the night is warm and Adam likes to be able to watch the reflection of the moon on the still waters of the ocean.

"Dejan, Mo," Jordan says. "Adam has something he wants to say."

With that generous introduction Jordan shuts his mouth and crosses his arms.

"Alright," Adam says slowly, silently cursing Jordan's abruptness. "Well, I've just had a letter from my lawyer in London, and he writes that he's been able to secure you a room in an infirmary in Edinburgh, Mo, where you would receive the care you need to fight this. They have some excellent success rates. The best one is in Switzerland but we don't have much time. You could start at the one in Edinburgh and if your condition improves enough to travel we could take you to Switzerland. I've all the arrangements in place should you choose to go. I want to help you, and this is, I believe, the best way I could, maybe the best way anyone could. I just wish we could have done this sooner. What do you think?"

Mo blinks at him for a few seconds and then turns his eyes to Jordan.

Jordan is silent at first, but Mo just keeps looking at him as if asking for his blessing. Finally Jordan clears his throat. "I think you should go, Mo. It's the best chance you've got," he says with obvious difficulty. "I want you here, but I can't keep you here in good conscience knowing that there's a chance you could get better."

"Would I go by myself?" Mo says. His eyes are nearly always watering, but now they look particularly sad.

"No," Adam says. "Dejan could accompany you. I can write ahead to make sure there is someone to meet you at the station in Edinburgh and convey you to the infirmary. I will follow as soon as matters are settled here."

"What matters?" Dejan says.

"Matters that don't concern you," Jordan says.

Dejan sets his jaw but does not press the issue.

Adam continues. "You would like it there, I've seen it. They have beautiful gardens and glass buildings you can sit in during the day. You can have visitors at any time and Dejan could even stay with you. It would just be temporary, until you can get better. Jordan will even go visit you."

Again Mo looks to Jordan as if to verify this, and Jordan nods, though his mouth is tight.

"How do we know this'll actually make him better?" Dejan says.

"We don't," Adam says, "but I think it's better that he get away from here, with the way things are. You know how the Edinburgh doctors are. They’re renowned for being some of the best physicians in the world, aren’t they?"

"We could hear you fighting about it, you know," Dejan says.

"Then you heard what Adam had to say and why it makes sense," Jordan says shortly.

"Why is he suddenly in charge?" Dejan says. "He hasn’t even been here a whole year yet. What, he spends a few days in Fiodha with us and suddenly he's running our lives? I—"

"Dejan," Jordan says sharply. "Look, I don't want you and Mo to leave. That's the last thing I want, and as angry as I am about everything that's happened in the last year—and I am angry, Dejan, I am so  _angry_ —Adam is the one good thing that has happened to us. You said it yourself just a few weeks ago."

Dejan frowns.

"Now, I'm asking you, I'm asking you both to go to this fancy hospital that only people like Adam can afford, because it'll give Mo a chance that he won't get here. You've trusted me this far and I'm asking you to trust me now, because I trust Adam."

Adam can't quite believe what he's hearing. Jordan isn't looking at him, just has his eyes steady on Mo, like he's encouraging him. It's a strange effect; Adam can see almost the exact moment when both Mo and Dejan accept Jordan's leadership and give in to their trust in him.

"When do we go?" Dejan says.

"As soon as possible," Adam says. "We can start for the train station tomorrow. Let's help you get packed now."

There isn't much of anything to pack; Mo has three shirts, his Qur’an, and a comb. Dejan doesn't have much more. They go to sleep early and start out for the mainland in the middle of the night so that they can do most of the travelling before the sun comes up.

Mo is mostly silent on the boat, propped up as he is on a quilt. Dejan is at the helm and Jordan sits up with him, while Adam sits astern with Mo.

"Am I going to see you and Jordan again?" Mo asks quietly, after they've reached Oban, now making their way to the train station in a bogie. Adam can tell from the way Jordan's back tenses slightly that he's heard, though Mo has next to no voice by now.

"Of course you will," Adam says. "You'll be safe at the hospital and under the care of some of the best doctors in the country. Maybe even the world. And if you do well maybe I can take you to Europe and they'll make you good as new."

"I just want to get better," Mo says, and Adam can see even in the dark that he's crying.

"You will," Adam says.

Up on the box he sees Jordan put a hand to Dejan's shoulder for a moment, gripping it tightly as if holding him in place. When he lets go, he turns his head partway and looks back at Adam out of the corner of his eye, and Adam tries not to imagine that he's thinking about what he will do to Adam if it turns out he was all wrong about everything and this separation was all for nothing.

The sun comes up and the ride seems endless. Adam has to get down and walk a few times, unable to stand the stifling stillness of sitting in the bed of the bogie. Mo lies down and they drape the blanket over the sides of the cart to shade him.

Finally, nearly twelve hours later, they arrive at the train station. Adam sends a telegram to his lawyer and buys Mo and Dejan their tickets while he waits for a reply. The next train to Edinburgh leaves at ten o'clock the next morning, so they arrange to spend the night in a boarding house. They eat a meagre meal served by the matron, who has a pinched mouth and seems to resent them deeply for bringing a consumptive boy into her home, though she cannot say no to the money. None of them are able to muster much appetite.

Jordan disappears shortly after dinner and Adam and Dejan help Mo to the room, which they will share, Mo and Dejan in the bed and Jordan and Adam on a trundle bed that pulls out from under the big one. Dejan stands at the window, silently looking out at the empty, dusty street and frowning. Mo sleeps, and Adam goes downstairs to write letters making arrangements for getting the money together to loan Jordan, for Mo and Dejan's arrival, and for his own return to London, which he cannot but feel will be imminent.

After that is finished he goes to the room and tells Mo and Dejan all about what will happen once they get to London, trying to assuage Mo's fear and Dejan's obvious reluctance.

At nearly eleven o'clock that night Jordan returns, hauling a crate of what looks like whiskey up into the room.

"What's all that?" Adam asks, sitting up from where he's lying in the trundle bed. Mo and Dejan blink over at Jordan in the darkness.

"Traded one of the horses for it," Jordan says, dropping the crate in the corner and taking his hat off.

"You traded a horse for a case of whiskey?"

"It's a fuckin' drought, Adam. It's not as if we'll be needing the horse on the croft anyway, is it, with all the boys gone?"

"Are you drunk?"

Jordan laughs. "No, Adam, I'm not drunk. Hell, I wish I was."

"You know spirits are not permitted in this house, she was very clear—"

"Yeah, what's she going to do about it? I wasn't exactly fighting my way through a crowd waiting for the pleasure of letting one of her beautiful rooms when I came in the door just now."

"But the horse—"

"One less animal to keep watered," Jordan says tersely. "And trust me, we're going to need this whiskey if we don't get some more rain soon."

"Give me one of those," Dejan says, climbing out of the bed.

Jordan takes one out of the case and tosses it at Dejan, who catches it and pops the cork, taking a swig.

"Don't let 'em catch you with that on the train," Jordan says.

Dejan rolls it up in one of his shirts and stuffs it into the burlap sack that they're using for luggage.

Adam lies down again and turns his back to the room so that he's facing the wall. He's worried about a lot of things - about Mo, about what it will be like with Jordan when it's just the two of them and these crates of whiskey, Jordan simmering with resentment and anger at the whole world, Adam included. And he's worried about what it will mean to say goodbye to Jordan when the time comes. Despite the awful way things have been lately, it will be even worse to be separated from Jordan, to know he's alive in the world and yet so far away.

Adam doesn’t even want to think about the prospect of returning to the present, to his life in 2018, where Jordan Henderson would just be another dead man from a time and place long forgotten.

A world without Jordan?

It’s worse than purgatory.

The air in the room is stifling even with the windows open. He can hear the soft rustle of clothing as Jordan takes his shirt off, and soon he's flopping down on the bed behind Adam, causing it to shift. The mattress is old and there's a dip in the middle; Adam involuntarily rolls right to the center, his shoulder and side flush against Jordan's.

They both lie there silently, Adam too scared of drawing attention to their situation to move and Jordan as inscrutable as ever. Adam is painfully aware of Jordan's every breath, the slow, steady movement of his chest, and he can smell alcohol on Jordan.

The minutes tick by, and Jordan's breathing is so steady that Adam begins to think he's asleep. It is uncannily light in the room because of the moonlight coming through the window. Adam turns his head as carefully as he can and looks over at Jordan. Jordan has his eyes closed and does, indeed, look to be asleep. Adam takes the opportunity to study him close up, his eyes sweeping over Jordan's profile. His skin is pale, almost blue in the moonlight, like marble. Adam's gaze shifts up to his hairline, and that's when he notices that he can see the tiny throb of Jordan's pulse beating quickly at his temple.

Adam jerks back involuntarily, realizing that Jordan is awake and probably aware of Adam turning to study him. Jordan does not stir at Adam's sudden movement, further evidence that he wasn't asleep, just keeping still, a pretence for Adam's benefit while his heart raced. Adam quickly turns around again, trying to still the beating of his own heart.

Everyone wakes up unrested and volatile; Jordan and Dejan get into a shouting argument over who forgot to wind the small clock in the room and Mo is completely silent. The morning is sticky and hot and still and moving at all is abhorrent, but they all drag themselves to the station, Mo leaning heavily on Jordan and Dejan.

When it is nearly time to board the train, Dejan takes Adam's arm and drags him a bit away from the bench where Jordan and Mo are sitting.

"You'll come get us as soon as you can?" he says, with the air of a skeptic who will doubt any answer Adam gives him.

"Yes," Adam says. "There are just some things about the croft I need to work out with Jordan first."

"I'll be alright, but you can't forget about Mo. I know it's easy and all, thinkin' you want to help him, but if you go back to your rich life in London you can't just have your lawyer send a check to the hospital and forget about Mo. He’s not got much time left."

"What makes you think I would forget about him?"

"You’ve been cut off from the world here at Jordan's. I just know, it's different when you get back with your old friends and old ways."

"I won't forget about either of you. I'll be back soon, I just need to help Jordan settle things down here a little."

Dejan grimaces and scuffs at the dirt under his shoe.

"Listen. I...maybe you already know, maybe I shouldn't say if you don't. Maybe it was clear as day to you when you first came here. But there's more reasons than just his worries about the croft that Jordan is the way he is. Most folks have heard even though they don't know if it's true or not. The ones who work for Jordan may've heard and don't care because they got things in their own past that they don't want told or they know the world’s not a fair place."

"Maybe Jordan doesn't want this talked about—"

"I think you should know, it might give you a better understanding of why he is the way he is and why he's stubbornly holding onto that fucking croft like they're going to have to rake his bones away to get him to leave it. He should’ve left a long time ago, back when all this trouble started. Nothing’s been easy since the story spread after he bought the croft. Someone passing through Lineile recognized Jordan from when he was a young lad and that's when folks started talkin' behind his back."

Adam knows he should probably stop Dejan, that this is something he shouldn't know if Jordan has not told him, but he can't quite bring himself to say anything, because he wants to know everything about Jordan, is so deeply in love with him that he's greedy for any little bit to do with Jordan, whether true or untrue, real or made-up, exaggerated or downplayed.

"You probably know he was adopted," Dejan says, "by a family that'd been out here a while. Jordan's parents had come all the way from Sunderland. But the whole family except Jordan died in a typhoid outbreak only a few weeks after they got to Mull. Jordan was old enough to know bad luck and what it would mean for him, but he was taken in by this family. They'd had a boy who died and they wanted to replace him, or so the story goes, but of course they just ended up hating him for not being their boy. So they treated him like just another hand around the place, except he didn't have to be hired; he was cheap because he was adopted. They were real hard on him and I think he was beaten and pushed around a lot. It wasn’t a real family for him."

These kinds of stories are not uncommon, Adam knows, but still it is difficult to think of Jordan living this life.

"When he was about thirteen they threw him out with nothing, no money, no references, nothing. He had nowhere to go and from what I heard everyone wondered why. But the story soon got out, probably because their daughter told. They had another son who was real close to Jordan, they were always sleeping together and Jordan was always doing this boy's work for him. He was kind of a sickly child, is what they say, but he clung to Jordan something fierce. And what I heard is..." Dejan's voice trails off.

"What?" Adam prompts, though he thinks maybe he already knows. "What did you hear?"

"They say old Mr. Ings found the two of them getting a little too close, if you know what I mean. The boy blamed Jordan and Jordan didn't say a word, though they cut his back open with a bullwhip and threw him into the sea, with one boat and nowhere to go. So Jordan sailed all the way to Lineile to start anew with old man Dalglish, who took him in.”

"And people still tell this story," Adam says.

"Yeah. I think the root of the problem in Lineile is that they're afraid of this, they think he's bringing some evil to this island, some real biblical Sodom and Gomorrah shit, and Jordan doesn't ever do nothing to help himself in their eyes. People bring up the fiancée who left him as proof, and Jordan's too proud to ever even acknowledge he knows this is what people think about him or to defend himself when people spit at him and try to hurt him because of it."

Dejan takes hold of both of Adam's lapels, fisting them tightly. "I’ve been thinkin' about this, I thought long and hard on the journey over here and last night, when none of us could sleep. Me and Jordan and Mo, all we've got is each other, the other lads come and go but the three of us have been family for a long time now. But Jordan's always been in charge of us, he's always had to take care of us and it's like he's our dad more than anything. And because he feels that responsibility for us that makes it impossible to help him. He won't lean on no one because everyone's leaning on him. And then Mo gets so sick and it's made everything even worse. But then you came and we could all see Jordan looked up to you. He doesn’t talk to no one, but he talks to you. And I see now why I’ve got to go with Mo, why we have to leave Jordan at least for a while, because we weren't doing any good here anyway, being such a burden on him. Now, I don't know what he's trying to prove by staying here, but he's got you and you're going to see it through, right?"

Adam feels his eyes watering slightly. He nods.

Dejan shakes Adam emphatically, just once, still gripping Adam's lapels. "You need to either help him erase this from their memories so it doesn't colour everything he does, or you need to help him let go of whatever he's trying so hard to hold on to and get him the fuck out of here."

He lets go and steps back, almost glaring at Adam before turning and walking back to where Jordan is sitting with Mo on the bench. Mo is leaning on Jordan with his eyes closed, pale as a sheet despite the heat.

They help Mo onto the train and then it's time to say goodbye. Adam gives them his card for introductions and Jordan gives them money. Mo looks up at him blankly.

"Don't worry. Got it for that horse," Jordan says. Then he leans down, his hand resting lightly on Mo's shoulder, and says something quietly next to Mo's ear that no one else can hear. Mo nods and looks down at his hands.

Dejan just looks at Jordan, his brown eyes infinitely sad, and then takes his seat. Jordan walks off the train quickly.

"Good luck," Adam says. "I'll be there as soon as I am able. Maybe with Jordan in tow."

Mo looks up. "If I don't see you again—"

"You will," Adam says automatically.

"But if I don't," Mo says with surprising vehemence. "I want to thank you for everything you've done and are still trying to do."

"You're welcome," Adam says. "I only wish it were in my power to do more."

The conductor calls the all aboard, so Adam shakes both their hands and leaves the train. Jordan is standing in the shadows of the station with his arms folded, his face shuttered. Adam stands next to him and they watch the train depart. A few other people watch it go, waving and calling goodbyes, but Jordan and Adam are silent.

When the train can no longer be seen Jordan turns to leave, Adam following, not knowing what to say or do. They water the horse and start out for home, neither of them speaking, though the silence is as taut as a bow string. Or, Adam reflects, maybe that is just his imagination, because he now has so much to mull over after Dejan's revelations at the train station.

The heat is worse today than it was yesterday, and they have to stop in the shade of one of the scarce trees along the road to wait out the worst of the sun toward late afternoon. Adam leans back against the trunk of the tree and closes his eyes, trying to swallow though his throat is dry, while Jordan unhitches the horse to bring it under the shade, too. It's foaming at its sides, glistening with sweat and heaving.

The minutes tick by; even the insects are silent.

"What did Dejan tell you?" Jordan says abruptly.

Adam opens his eyes.

Jordan is standing with his back to Adam, looking out over the glens and the glades that stretch endlessly in every direction.

"He told me a little bit about your childhood," Adam says, choosing his words carefully. "And he wanted to make sure that there was something I could do to change the situation here."

"And that's loaning the money to keep me from losing the croft, is that it?"

The harshness in Jordan's voice makes Adam want to moan his frustration aloud, some long wail of supplication meant to show Jordan how much it pains Adam to see him suffer, to know this terrible history of his, to know that all of Jordan's stubbornness stems from having felt helpless all his life to have any control over his destiny. But even though he knows Jordan might understand, might truly listen to the words he's saying, what Dejan told Adam only convinces Adam more that Jordan would never allow himself to accept what Adam wants to give him most of all. Adam knows now that, barring some apocalyptic circumstance, whatever it is that exists between the two of them, no matter how close they get to it, the world they inhabit and the circumstances of both of their lives will ensure that it is unattainable in this lifetime.

Adam wants to blame Jordan for it, for refusing to rise above the unfairness of a past that has followed him despite his attempts to make something of himself, but that, too, is unfair, and Adam won't be on the other side, trying to pull Jordan in yet another direction. All he can offer is his financial support, but it appears Jordan is going to make this difficult, too, and Adam wants to get on his knees before Jordan and beg him to let Adam make life a little easier in this one small way.

"Jordan," Adam says finally, "I'd take care of all of it if you'd let me. I'd pay for every loss and want nothing for it but that you be left in peace to do what you want. Even if..."  _Even if what you want has nothing to do with me,_  Adam wants to say, but he stops himself because that would bring everything that Jordan seems determined not to acknowledge out in the open.

"I've never had to ask anyone for help," Jordan says. "Not since my parents died and help did me more harm than good."

"We'll make the arrangements," Adam says, "and then I'll leave for London and you can be sure that no further harm will come to you from my help."

"If that's how you want it," Jordan says.

"It's not how I want it," Adam says harshly. "It's how you want it, it's what circumstances dictate, is it not?"

Jordan doesn't answer, which is what Adam has come to expect by now, a fact that doesn't make it any less frustrating.

It surprises Adam, though, at how easy it is for him to embody this role of a 19th century gentleman from the city, given the circumstances – and how hard it is for him to admit that he doesn’t want to leave.

Not yet.

“You’re not from here,” Jordan finally says, in what feels like forever.

Adam frowns. “You know I’m not.”

Jordan shakes his head, a wry smile on his lips. “No, Adam. You’re not really from here, are you?” he sighs. “Not…from this place. Time. _World._ ”

Adam merely stares dumbly at Jordan, words stuck in his throat. All he could do is painfully swallow every syllable that had briefly danced on the tip of his tongue. It feels that he has let Jordan down, like he’s betrayed him somehow. From the first moment of him drowning, to the moment that he was captured and saved and brought back to life on Melwood.

“You’re Adam, but you’re _not_ Adam,” Jordan says accusatorily. His tone remains calm, like the blissful seas before an oncoming storm. “You’re not a selkie like what them folk have been saying, are you? You’re a changeling.”

“I—don’t—,” Adam stammers, but another shake of Jordan’s head silences him. His cheeks burn with shame, hot with the realization that Jordan probably, _really,_ hates him now. He doesn’t know how Jordan knows, but Jordan’s found out the truth about him somehow, and to Adam, this is a disaster. He doesn’t realize how long he’s been holding his breath when Jordan suddenly places a hand on his shoulder, merely gazes down at Adam with an indeterminate look in his eyes.

“I don’t fucking care, Adam. I don’t care who you are or where you came from, or what you’re trying to prove. You’ve done enough. For us. For me. I—,” he trails off, before taking his hand away, falling limply by his side. Jordan opens and closes his fist awkwardly, gritting his teeth as he does so. The warmth of Jordan’s touch lingers like a brand on Adam’s skin, through the thin layer of his clothes.

Briskly and thoughtlessly, Adam reaches out for the same hand that has reached up for him, and grips it firmly. Traces the callouses on Jordan’s palms with the pads of his fingers, as if he’s trying to sooth Jordan’s fears, his uncertainties. “Thank you, Jordan,” he whispers. He would have kissed each knuckle, longing to taste the salt on Jordan’s skin if not for his last-minute resolve and the sudden blaring alarm that this is unbecoming of a man who is not even supposed to exist here. He lets Jordan’s hand go, his heart skipping a beat when he notices that Jordan’s breath slightly hitches at the loss of contact.

When the sun starts to set they hitch the horse up again and start down the road, all the way to the jetty at Oban to make the final trip home on Melwood.

Adam dozes off after dark a few times, the undulating waves gently lullabying him to sleep, as Jordan sets the course for Lineile. Several times Adam finds himself ending up with his cheek on Jordan's shoulder, but Jordan doesn’t push him away. He rouses Adam gently when they reach the pier, making their way back to Tigh-na-Fiodha which is dark and empty and silent. They fall onto their cots in exhaustion as soon as they can.

When he wakes up Adam thinks it's dawn because of the light on the wall coming through the window of the room they're sleeping in, but it's a strange, dim, flickering orange light, and in an instant Adam knows something is terribly wrong. He stumbles up out of the cot and to the window, and he can see huge flames licking up at the black sky from the farmlands of the croft, and the boats on the piers engulfed in the wrath of fiery blaze. Acres and acres are burning already; Tigh-na-Fiodha is surrounded by fire in all directions – the lands, the seas, and the only safe place is inside the house, which is sat atop a small hill. The smell of smoke is heavy in the air.

He turns around and sees Jordan sleeping, still dead to the world and to this new calamity. Adam puts a hand to his shoulder, pressing it lightly for a moment, and Jordan shifts a little, making a small noise. Adam's heart is beating fast out of fear and panic about the fire and terror at the prospect of Jordan having to face yet another terrible blow to everything he has worked so hard for. There is no way they will be able to salvage the crop now, or even the boats and the seawares – and Jordan will be even worse off. Adam remembers wishing for some apocalyptic event that would force Jordan to let go of everything, but now that it has happened he wishes it hadn't, afraid of what it will do to Jordan.

"Jordan," Adam says, his voice cracking, and shakes him. "Jordan, wake up, please—"

Jordan's eyes blink open and he looks up at Adam, still confused, and the look in his eyes makes Adam's eyes water.

"Jordan, there's a fire—the croft, the pier—everything's burning," Adam says, feeling like something is choking him.

Jordan's face hardens with frightening quickness, and he sits up. They both fell into bed with their shoes still on. Jordan pulls his suspenders up over his shoulders and strides out toward the door, Adam hurrying after him.

The smoke is thick enough and the air still enough that it's difficult to breathe. The only thing to be thankful for is that there is hardly any wind, and what little wind there is seems to be blowing the fire away from the house. Jordan makes his way toward the edge of the pier, which is already charred and barren, together with it his boats and his beloved Melwood, and just watches as the fire voraciously leaps across acres of land, the stillness of his silhouette against the flames making Adam's eyes burn more than the smoke.

"Should we try to chase it? Let the others know?" Adam croaks over the crackle and roar.

"Don't bother," says a new voice, and they both turn around to see Studge smiling and sitting on Jordan's horse, holding a rifle. "They all know, they were all in on it. They've been planning something like this for a while, only they were too scared to go through with it. But I wasn't." He chews the grass between his teeth and smirks out at the fire as if delighted by it. "Nothing personal, Jordan, and it never was. Hope you know that. "

He urges the horse toward the road but turns around abruptly.

"Oh, and I let all your animals out. Seems they weren't too keen on sticking around to watch the blaze."

Jordan doesn't say a word. He'd turned around shortly after Studge made his presence known and didn't dignify Studge's speech with any response whatsoever.

Adam is almost afraid to look at Jordan's face but he wants to very badly, so he comes forward.

"Jordan," he says.

Jordan doesn't move; maybe he hasn't heard Adam, but Adam sees wetness on his cheek, a streak through the dirt. Before he can stop himself, Adam reaches out to touch it.

The moment he makes contact Jordan turns his head and catches Adam's wrist in a strong grip. Adam can see the fire reflected in Jordan's eyes; he's terrifying, again, some horrific pain in his face—defeat, perhaps, or scorching anger, something so strong that it is impossible to conceal, even for Jordan.

"There's nothing we can do," Jordan says, like this is something he has tried to keep from saying his whole life and can't hold in anymore.

"I'm so sorry," Adam says. Jordan is still gripping his wrist, so tight that the blood flow is cut off from his hand.

Jordan draws him closer, Adam stumbling over the few steps between them, and Jordan catches him around the waist with his other hand. The roar from the fire dims in Adam's ears to be replaced by the roaring in his own ears, of the waves of the oceans now threatening to match the fury of the flames, up, up in the skies, crashing against the rocks. There it is again, the siren song, the same one he’s heard before he fell, and he realizes that he is standing at the same spot where he had been before.

Back before this all started, before he took the plunge.

Adam stares up at Jordan, both of them on that brink they've been on before, and Adam has one wild moment to wonder whether Jordan is going to jump, this time, before Jordan bends down quickly and kisses Adam.

It's different from any other kiss he's ever experienced. Jordan is fierce, and Adam feels his insides turn to liquid as Jordan's arms crush him close. Jordan is huge, his body wrapping around Adam's and lifting him up off the ground so they can reach each other. His hands are everywhere, sure and strong, and Adam hears himself make horrible, shameful noises when he feels Jordan's hand reaching down the back of his thigh to bring them flush against each other. Everything around them is hot, but nothing burns like Jordan's mouth on him, on his lips, the line of his jaw, his neck, everywhere Jordan can reach. Adam has his own hands fisted in Jordan's shirtfront. They're both sweaty and covered in dirt but there's something about rubbing it all off on each other that is the most intimate thing Adam has ever done.  _Why now,_  he wants to ask,  _why next to your burning boats?_  But Adam thinks he knows the answer, and all he can do is give Jordan everything he wants, to let Jordan have his way for once, because it is what Adam has wanted for so long now too.

Jordan breaks away and buries his face in Adam's neck, and Adam can feel the wetness of Jordan's tears, can feel the way Jordan's chest is heaving. Adam wraps his arms around Jordan's shoulders and runs his hand over the short fuzz on Jordan's head, hair that has just started growing back. He feels silly and useless, trying to soothe Jordan like a child, but Jordan just holds on tightly and breathes against Adam's neck, his trembling slowly subsiding.

The fire is farther away by now and dawn is breaking, the sky turning grey over the charred ground directly before them. Adam can see the fire checked at some of the barriers they dug.

Jordan raises his head and they look out at the damage together.

"I'm so tired," Jordan says. “I’m so tired, Adam.”

Adam turns back to look up at him, eyes going over every inch of his beautiful, tired face, and cups his cheek in one hand.

"It will be alright," Adam says. "What you lost—"

"I've got you," Jordan says possessively, nearly growling the words, "I've got you now, and that's all that matters. Nothing I've done matters until now, starting from now, with you."

He scoops Adam up in his arms and carries him back to the ruins of Tigh-na-Fiodha, dropping him down on Jordan's cot in the little room they've been sharing and falling down into the tiny space with him.

"I've lost everything," Jordan says, leaning over Adam, "but you,  _you_  I'll hold onto forever. You’re my selkie wife. You're trapped here, Adam, I'm never letting you go."

"No," Adam moans, "—don't ever let me go."

They both smell like smoke, but it doesn't matter; they cling to each other anyway, Adam tucked up under Jordan's chin, and fall asleep together, the fire dying outside, everything tying Jordan to this place going up in the billowing black smoke.

 

* * *

 

Jordan is still asleep when Adam wakes. It must be late afternoon; the air is heavy and humid but cooler, and Adam thinks he can hear thunder in the distance. As quietly as he can he raises himself up so he can see out the kitchen window through the door of the room. There's smoke rising from a few places but mostly the fire has burnt itself out, held in check by the ditches Jordan was so determined to keep clear around his croft.

There's still smoke in the sky, or maybe, Adam hopes, they're real clouds.

He lies back down, head pillowed on one of his hands, and watches Jordan sleep. Jordan is sprawled on his stomach, head turned to the side like he'd fallen asleep watching Adam. Adam reaches over and runs a finger lightly over Jordan's forehead. Jordan flinches a little but doesn't wake up, and Adam withdraws his hand.

"Jordan," Adam whispers, soft enough that he won't wake Jordan, but out loud, because he wants some part of Jordan to hear this, even if he is not aware of it.

"I wondered for so long why I came here, to Lineile. My family and friends had been worried about me—they thought I was running away from my responsibilities, from the consequences of what I am, what I had done. I told them I needed to get away for a while, to find something that would allow me to re-evaluate my life choices, and start living the life I was trained to live,” Adam confesses, because it’s the truth. “I came to Tigh-na-Fiodha to lose myself. I didn’t expect to come here, to find you, to be found by you. And in you finding me, I found myself,” he says, tears beginning to form in his eyes, words coming out in short, shuddering breaths that threaten to turn into ugly sobs. “I wondered what good I could do for you, why fate had conspired to bring me here again, only hundreds of years too early. To be confronted with all the terrible things you are facing, all the cruelty and unfairness, the unkindness of people, the small-minded hatred they bear for those who think or act differently. I hated that I was just a burden to you."

He touches Jordan's eyebrow as gently as he can, marvelling at the pale downward tilt of it, so low over his eyes, the way it serves to make Jordan look so forbidding when he chooses, but so harmless and innocent now.

“When I first came here, hundreds of years away from now, I saw a portrait of you. Half of the canvas was torn from its frame, like someone’s cut it up on purpose in rage, or something. It was in this room, tucked into a corner with your Turner and Klopp’s daguerreotypes. It scared me. You scared me, because you’d looked so angry and stern in those still captures of your likeness— and I wondered what could make someone look like that. But now I know. And you did need my help, as I needed yours. I had something I could give you, I just had to find out what that was,” Adam sniffles. “And it wasn't money, like I thought for a long time. You taught me to care about things and to fight for them, to be tenacious and own up to responsibilities. Which I know I’d lost, or I’d lacked, before I came here. I came for you to give me that, but I also came to free you from being crushed under all of that, to help you let go of taking responsibility for all the evil things that happen in the world. I want you to let yourself lean on me, to let me be the one you look to if you feel alone, to show you how we can try to be happy. I think I can see the way, even if we have to rely on your strength to carry us through. Do you understand? I hope you do."

Jordan's hand is resting in the space between them, and Adam covers it with his own hand, their fingers entwining. Jordan stirs at that, his eyes blinking open, and Adam imagines he can see their whole history in Jordan's eyes as he stares at Adam, smiling slightly and curling his fingers to hold on.

Adam can't help it; he leans over and bites at the cleft in Jordan's chin, just underneath his bottom lip, something he's wanted to do for months and months. He can feel Jordan's skin stretch under his teeth as Jordan smiles, laughs, even, a low rumble in his chest. Adam reaches down to unbutton Jordan's shirt, his fingers trembling slightly, but Jordan waits patiently, never taking his eyes off Adam's face.

When Adam gets the buttons open he presses his hand to Jordan's sternum, feeling the lean hardness under the soft bronze of his skin.

Jordan sits up to pull his shirt off, then reaches over to yank Adam's open, buttons flying, but Adam doesn't care. Jordan rolls over on top of him and Adam can barely think. Jordan's mouth is all over, and he works his way down Adam's chest, licking and biting and sucking so that Adam doesn't know whether to laugh or moan. His stomach caves when Jordan rests his cheek against it, rubbing his face against the skin there like it's comforting to him.

Adam is so hard he thinks he might embarrass himself, and Jordan makes it infinitely worse when he mouths Adam through the fabric of his trousers. Adam is shocked; but it feels good enough that he doesn't care where Jordan learned to do that.

"Jordan," he moans, looking down, and Jordan looks up, resting his chin on Adam's hip.

"What do you want, Adam?" Jordan asks, running his hand along Adam's flank.

Adam thinks for a moment. "I want you here close to me," he says finally, and Jordan smiles, hoisting himself up so that he's lying beside Adam, head propped up on one arm.

"And what else do you want?"

"I...want you to touch me," Adam says, fighting embarrassment, but the hungry look on Jordan's face makes him brave.

"Like this?" Jordan whispers, and his hand moves down into Adam's trousers.

Adam reaches down to undo them and pull them aside, and Jordan leans down to kiss the side of Adam's head as he starts stroking Adam, slow and sure and deliberate.

Adam hisses and turns his face into Jordan's. Their breath mingles and Adam's heart-rate climbs with each movement of Jordan's hand.

"Jordan," Adam says.

"You're all mine, aren’t you?" Jordan says, his speech lapsing and his own breath quickening. "God, Adam, you're here with me, after everything, I’ve got you right here. You were sent here just for me."

"Please, Jordan," Adam says getting desperate, trying not to arch up off the cot but wanting to push his hips into Jordan's fist and let go.

"Come on, Adam, I want to see, I want to see you—"

"Jordan!" Adam cries just before he loses his mind completely, Jordan's lips pressed to his temple and his other arm around his shoulders, like Jordan is catching up all of Adam's pleasure and hoarding it between them, keeping it safe.

No sooner does Adam go limp then Jordan reaches down to undo his own trousers. He rolls over onto Adam and pushes up against him. Adam is so blissed out that he can barely move, but he raises his knees and cradles Jordan's hips between his thighs. Jordan supports his weight on his forearms and lets his head hang down, rocking his hips against Adam in tight little thrusts, his huge frame rocking the small cot. When he comes he groans loudly, and Adam catches up Jordan's pleasure, too, holds it all close to him. When Jordan collapses on top of him Adam reaches around to run his fingertips over Jordan's ribcage, over the dark ink he knows by memory, now, from having stared at his shirtless body on the boats so often. And he feels what the ink was meant to conceal—thick, raised welts, scars from childhood beatings.

Jordan doesn't jerk away, just lets Adam feel him and learn him, their bodies slowly stilling. Adam feels strangely cool after having come, and everything is just right, perfect even, though they are lying in a half-wrecked cottage next to a burning croft.

"Will you take me to London so I can see the city?" Jordan says.

"Yes," Adam says. "I'll take you anywhere. We'll get Dejan and Mo and sail across the ocean, go to Europe, see the Alps. Mo will recover and we can start again, you can help me reorganize the family business if you like. Or we can go somewhere all new."

They continue making plans like children plotting an adventure. When they get hungry Adam scrounges for food in the pantry while Jordan goes down to the cellar. By dusk they're eating baked trout in the shade of the porch, clouds gathering dark and heavy on the horizon, like a Turner painting.

“I smell rain,” Jordan says.

Adam smiles. He doesn't know if it's really coming or not, but he is content to believe, with Jordan, that it will.

That night, Adam sleeps serenely in Jordan’s arms. It’s the deepest slumber he’s managed to have in years.

Outside, the rain begins to fall.

 

* * *

 

Adam wakes up in July, to bright fluorescent lights, and a tube shoved down his throat. He coughs in panic, tries to move but he feels paralysed. Being half-awake, knowing that he could see and hear everything moving around him, but he couldn’t move a muscle. The smell of chlorine interspersed with piss hits his nostrils, beeping monitors assaulting his eardrums, tangled wires attached to his torso and limbs. There’s a drip on the back of his hand. He thrashes about the ITU bed, until the alarm goes off and a group of nurses and doctors come running by his side.

He remembers little else until the next time he wakes up.

 

* * *

 

His throat still hurts from the intubation, but at least the offending plastic tube is out for now and he’s awake enough to maintain his own airway. An oxygen tube is stuck into his nostrils, running at 4L per minute. There is a ‘Get Well Soon’ card and tacky balloons next to his bed, and a vase of fresh carnations that must have only been changed either yesterday or today. Adam looks to his right. His mother is sleeping on the chair, head tilted to the left, a tattered copy of Dawn French’s _‘A Tiny Bit Marvellous’_ lying askew between her fingers.

He’s in a hospital, but which one? And how did he get here?

There is a sharp ache in his chest that has nothing to do with his physical injuries. He feels like he’s missed something, or someone. He remembers driving up north to Scotland, to Oban, to Mull and then to Lineile. He remembers Tigh-na-Fiodha, the azure waves and the skies that remind him of Turner paintings, and—

Jordan.

Where is Jordan?

For a moment Adam thinks that he has just woken up from a long, disorientating, vivid dream. That he’s never met Jordan. That he was never on Lineile. He wills the ache in his chest to go away, but it only builds and builds. Until he no longer could hold the tide.

Until he breaks into ugly sobs that quakes his entire body.

He starts crying for no reason at all, mourning memories that probably have never even occurred in reality. Were they just his flights of fancy? A mere manifestation of his desire to escape? How would one grieve in a situation like this?

His mother wakes in panic and tries to sooth him. Adam doesn’t say anything – how could he? He’s already done one crazy thing by falling off a cliff, people will say that he wants to off himself. To say that he’s been whisked back in time to 1848, made friends with fishermen folk on the coast of Lineile, and falling in love with one of them? They would deem him delusional, maybe section him and put him in a mental health unit. He knows he’s been on the precipice; that he had been dancing on a tightrope, between the edges of life and death when he went up to Lineile on a drunken rage. He wants to live now. He wants to live, with Jordan by his side, because that’s what he’s promised to do.

But Jordan’s not here.

Adam’s tears stain the pillow, having no care for shame or dignity. He clutches at his mother for comfort, as if by embracing her he would be able to bring Jordan back. He remembers trying to form verses in his head, to describe Jordan to his mother. He has so many words to say to her about him right now, but none of them would come out, frozen on his lips like a cursed blessing. His breaths stutter with each peak and trough of his sobs, and Adam cries himself to sleep.

 

* * *

 

He does have to go through at least five psychiatric assessments before he is deemed well enough to go home. His parents and sister are worried about him. So are Robbo and Virgil, who have been taking turns to keep watch on him when his family is not able to come. “Don’t look at the papers, Adz. You don’t want to know,” Robbo has said, when he came to visit one time and they were taking a walk down the infirmary’s main corridor, passing by WHSmith.

Adam’s in Edinburgh, and has been for the last two weeks in ITU. Someone fished him out of the sea just off the coast of Lineile, and rumours were that he was caught by a trawler boat in their fishing net. They gave him CPR, got the emergency helicopter out to the nearest specialist hospital to be stabilised (Glasgow), then transferred to Edinburgh. Now that he’s well enough to walk unaided, he will be spending the rest of his recuperation time down south, back in England.

“Only if you want to, of course,” Robbo adds, not unkindly. “I can understand if you don’t want to – especially with all the stuff that has been happening before you came to Scotland.”

Adam deflects the subject by asking Robbo if he knew who had found and saved him, in their trawler boat. Robbo shrugs. “No one knows. No one’s owned up to it, which is fucking bonkers because it’s _you_ we’re talking about here. I guess they just want a quiet wee life and get on with it, you ken these islanders? The most important thing is they found you and you’re safe and in good health, aye?”

Adam nods. A coincidence is a coincidence. He should not read too much into it, and he’s probably been brought back to life, in the present moment, for a reason. He’s alive. Leave the past behind. Leave the memories behind, even if they had felt so real, so real that Adam could still taste it.

 

* * *

 

 _Lallana’s family and Liverpool FC could not be reached for comment,_ the papers report.

Respecting Adam’s wishes, his family has let him stay in Scotland, where less people would be aware of who he is – as opposed to going back to Bournemouth or Liverpool, as homesick as he is. Robbo’s told some of his family members in Giffnock to let Adam stay at one of their homes to recuperate, which they’re only kind enough to assist with. Adam’s feeling guilty with the amount of trouble that Robbo’s raised to shelter him out of the limelight, but Robbo tells him to stop being an eejit and look after himself, because – “I know you’d do the same for us too, if we’re in trouble, Adam. We look after each other because we’re not just teammates – we’re friends, aye?”

Adam thinks of Tigh-na-Fiodha, and thinks of Liverpool, and _gosh,_ he thinks – he’s not really alone, after all.

 

* * *

 

In late August, Adam texts his parents and Robbo to say that he’s going back to Lineile. “Don’t worry,” he adds in the text, “—I’m not going to do anything silly. Just want to revisit the crime scene,” he types, before adding a magnifying glass emoji, and another one of a pair of eyes, and three red hearts to seal the deal.

He retraces his footsteps, from the ferry ride to Mull and the boat to Lineile. Adam remembers thinking that Lineile would have looked like Bournemouth, like any other coastal towns in England, but he now realizes that his assessment was utterly bollocks. Lineile is Lineile – there’s an unspoken charm about the island that makes it different from other coastal towns down South, or even among the Hebridean Isles. The architecture along the coast is undeniably more modern than the ones he remembers from 1848, but everything else remains the same. The cliffs, the hills, the piers.

The skies.

He treks into town and sees Lineile Abbey, where he and Jordan and Gini once listened to Rev. Neville’s sermons and tried not to roll their eyes at some of the things that are being said. His schoolhouse has been demolished, for obvious reasons, although a new primary school has taken its place, where its foundations had been. There was no mention of a London schoolmaster named Adam Lallana, anywhere.

Six miles out, he remembers taking this route that stormy night to Tigh-na-Fiodha, only one month ago. He remembers the way off by heart, because it’s the same route he’s been taking almost every day from the schoolhouse to Jordan’s home. To his croft, to his pier and his boats. The main difference now is that it’s a proper, tarred road instead of a muddy ditch. He almost could hear Dejan chatting to him excitedly about the weather, or about the day’s catch, or what Mo’s going to make for dinner that night. He looks up at the skies, seeing the white seagulls against the grey clouds. His ears prick when he begins to hear the familiar roar of waves, as he nears his destination. The red cottage atop the hill, which once had been charred to ashes, begins to come into view.

To his surprise, Tigh-na-Fiodha looks as good as new – as if nothing’s ever happened to it. As if it’s never been burnt to the ground. As if—

As if Jordan’s still alive.

Adam walks around the land, at what used to be Jordan’s croft, familiar and unfamiliar all at once. It’s not quite the fertile farmland that he remembers, but there are a few sheep and horses grazing the fields to the west. Lineile is famed for its aquaculture these days, and it seems that the current owners of Tigh-na-Fiodha are also following the trend. There is a small route that wasn’t there before in 1848, leading up to the pier, where at least a dozen boats are moored to the jetty. Adam remembers the flame that has destroyed most of Jordan’s boats, including Melwood, and a pang of nostalgia begins to churn sharply inside his gut.

The waves are gentle today, the waters cerulean blue. Like Jordan’s eyes. It’s trite comparison, but it’s true.

He must have stared longingly at the sea for an insurmountable length of time, because a voice then shouts out, “You a’ight there, mate?”

It’s not quite the accent he’d expected around these parts.

It’s also not quite the accent he’s expected to hear after 170 years, or even after one month.

Adam turns around and thinks that he could hear the sirens singing to him again, like a herald, like a thousand monastic bells tolling endlessly, all at the same time. Because he would have recognized those eyes anywhere. The other man’s got a beanie cap on, hiding the hue of his hair, but Adam knows that it’s russet brown, and that it turns gold when lit underneath the glare of the sun.

“Adam,” the other man says, in grave recognition. He takes one step closer towards Adam— his icy gaze swiftly tearing Adam’s heart asunder, like Moses with his staff and the Red Sea.

He’s only met this man for five seconds, but it already feels like they’ve known each other for five lifetimes and more.

“Jordan,” Adam replies, because what else is there to say?

And behind him, Adam realizes, is a modern trawler boat – but the familiar coat of red paint only means one thing, which is confirmed when Jordan steps away to give Adam the full view of her hull.

_Melwood._

Time stands still before them. Jordan looks just as Adam has always remembered, even in his tartan-patterned flannel and yellow hoodie – a modern look, but Jordan is _still_ Jordan.

Adam could hear Jordan’s sharp intake of breath as he straightens his posture. His gaze is sharp, as if affronted by Adam’s carelessness, before his features soften into what poets might call hope.

_Love._

"You found me," Jordan mutters, his fingers reaching out for Adam’s hand.

There is a pause, then:

"I promised, didn’t I?” Adam says, and Jordan’s eyes light up in anticipation. "I've lost everything," Adam says, thinking about whatever’s left of his football career, the relentless gossip about him in the papers, the life he has left to live. “But you, _you_ I'll hold onto forever,” he exhales slowly, repeating Jordan’s words to him from forever ago, in return. He knows that Jordan recognizes them, from the way his eyes light up at his words. Fate is cruel mistress, but Adam and Jordan can play at this game, too.

 

* * *

 

Jordan closes his eyes.

He couldn't explain why. Probably it’s because he’d prefer to wake up and find that Adam is well and truly gone; so that he’d think that it was all a nice dream, that Adam’s just a phantom in his memory— so that it wouldn’t be harder for him to say goodbye when time and space decided to fuck them up again. But when Adam entwines his fingers with Jordan’s, tears begin to form in his shut eyes and roll stubbornly off his cheeks. Adam reaches up to wipe them off with his thumb, but still Jordan refuses to open his eyes. He doesn’t even know why he’s crying, only he recognizes the pain suddenly throbbing in his heart— and maybe it’s _goodbye,_ the same feeling he had when he was beaten up and cast out from Mull, left adrift to fend for his life before he sailed for Lineile. Maybe it’s the same kind of rage when Tigh-na-Fiodha was burnt to the ground, or the same kind of agony when he woke up that day in late July, realizing that Adam was _gone._

It was the same feeling he had on the day he realized that there was something wrong with him but he didn’t know how to fix it and it was only when Adam was there that somehow it was all _fixed._

Six years Jordan has waited; an empty shell. There was nothing left for him in Lineile, not even his godforsaken croft, his beloved Tigh-na-Fiodha. The waves sang to him, but there was no joy in them. With each tide, they called out his name like a litany; like cursed sea shanties that he could never shake off. He’s travelled across continents and oceans, from one port to another. His heart is anchored to the sea— it always has been, but Jordan’s soul is steadfastly tied to the mooring that is Adam. Without him, Jordan has nothing left to give to this life, but only the tattered cordage of his soul, only the metallic coils of his will. In storms and sunsets, he’s fought countless battles and won many wars, if only it means he could reach Adam once again.

At Patropavlovsk, 1854, he heard the sirens singing to him; a song he’s known since childhood, since he sailed from Sunderland to Mull to Lineile. It echoed gently across the waters, before surging louder and louder with each ripping wave. He heard them urging him to return to the seas, while Jordan was hard alee and battling the Russians, ferocious and unrelenting. Jordan’s trusted his hands. He’s trusted the sanity of his mind and of his vessel, until it sank, taking his body into the depths of the ocean. But not his soul, _never_ his soul. Jordan remembers how his fathomless arms flounder helplessly, against the waves that have kept him from reaching Adam.

 _I’m rambling,_ Jordan thinks; and then: _I must be growing really old now._

Even now, Jordan remembers each gasp of air as he drowns, each lungful of brine that fills his chest— but the pain will never match the agony of losing Adam.

He remembers waking up on Tigh-na-Fiodha, in late August, but the world seems so different. So vibrant, so deafening – so _confusing._

It’s 2018 instead of 1854. Scotland instead of Russia.  Lineile instead of Patropavlovsk. 

The bairns on the pier have looked at him strangely, although they recognized him as Jordan Henderson of Tigh-na-Fiodha, the curmudgeonly misanthropic scary fisherman from Sunderland— as if they knew that he was harbouring a dark secret. As if they could see that he wasn’t this timeline’s version of Jordan Henderson; the Jordan Henderson that was born in 1990 instead of 1820- and Jordan knows this based on the driving licence he found in his wallet. As if they knew that that he had travelled through pockets of time and space, all the way from 1854 to 2018, despite _still_ looking like the curmudgeonly misanthropic fisherman from Sunderland.

Jordan’s traveled the world and back again, only to arrive here, in Lineile, in 2018.

But he’s still missing Adam.

Until today.

Until now.  

 

* * *

 

So Jordan closes his eyes tighter, but all he could see are those swirling, twinkly dots in the darkness at the back of his eyes – _eigengrau._ He hears the wailing melody, the sirens chanting a triumphant song. It’s different from any song he’s ever heard, telling him that it’s _alright,_ that it’s _enough_ \- _God, this will be enough,_ so Jordan gives up and opens his eyes, and the first thing he sees is _Adam._

Adam—who has risen from the deepest caverns, from deep beneath the oceans. Adam, who now spreads his arms out like peregrine wings, wrapping them around Jordan— who is standing stiff as a Roman pillar; awkward. Jordan lifts his heavy arms and pats Adam’s back, tears burning in his eyes, trying to remember how to return an embrace—and _God, I could cry,_ Jordan thinks in shock, before holding Adam fiercely and never wanting to let go. When Adam finally presses their lips together, Jordan feels as though the heavy burden from his heart has disappeared.

 _In finding you, I’ve found myself,_ Jordan thinks, after what feels like eternity, chasing each other across continents, between oceans and time and the universe.

When they part, they stand there in silence, watching the sunset.

“You’re my selkie wife,” Jordan recites; words that had been spoken either two centuries or one month ago, but he has little care for semantics and timelines now. Not when Adam’s here in front of him, alive and real. “You're trapped here, Adam, and I'm never letting you go."

"No," Adam rasps in response, "—don't ever let me go."

 

* * *

 

Gone are the smell of mildew and rotten wood. This house is not unlived – it’s clean, it’s alive, it feels like home.

Jordan’s portrait is hung in the parlour, above the fireplace. It’s of a Captain Jordan Henderson of the Crimean War, donning a military, naval garment. Adam has seen Jordan wear many things, but a military outfit is not one of them. A double-breasted frock coat, gold braids on his epaulettes, bicorne underneath his left arm, a sword on his waist. He looks regal, magnificent, severe, and unlike the defeated man covered in soot when his boats were burned to ashes. His countenance is still one that Adam remembers seeing from the same portrait, only one month ago. The difference is that the portrait is properly framed, there’s no hint that the canvas has ever been vandalised. Adam could see, now, that a major part of the torn canvas— the bit of the portrait he hadn’t been able to see in its entirety one month ago – was _himself._

In the portrait, Adam is sitting on a chaise next to Jordan, who is standing firm, eyes boring deeply into any unfortunate soul who happens to gaze at the painting. Adam doesn’t remember ever posing for the portrait, so he turns to stare quizzically Jordan, hoping for answers. “I had them paint you based on this daguerreotype, after you disappeared,” he hands Adam the black-and-white photograph. One that had been taken by Klopp so many years ago, but as pristine as new.

The Turner painting is on the wall opposite. Adam regards it briefly, before looking out the window. Gazing at the skies and the seas, the warmth of Jordan’s body standing just behind him, close. Like a sentinel.

The clouds are gathering dark and heavy on the horizon.

“I smell rain,” Adam says.

Jordan smiles.

He doesn't know if it's really coming or not, but he is content to believe, with Adam, that it will.

 

* * *

 

end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> january is drawing to a close. this is likely to be my last update in a long, long time. thank you to all who have been reading, commenting, leaving kudos. you guys are amazing.
> 
> i promised booperesque that i would write a sequel where 1848!hendo adjusts to life in the 21st century with adam, and i haven't forgotten that promise.
> 
>  
> 
> [spotify playlist here](https://open.spotify.com/user/incendiarywit/playlist/3SpgLWHqI58NemsRpOY9ug?si=s0Lmg44MTa2RyMDsV4LoSQ)
> 
>  and [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/incendiarywit/playlist/0jCdJ9JQTAfCnoijhfQd0h?si=WweohUaCRLWhi_NT0mRxYA)
> 
>  
> 
> \- it's a loooong playlist, but i was struck in the feels and i can't help it.


End file.
